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“You did?” she asked, brightening. She’d be sure to replay those words in her head later, mulling every possible implication.
Rather than answer, Aidan turned his attention to the book. Even though he’d grown gruff, he was leafing through the pages gingerly, and she appreciated his care. “Where do you keep this one? In the sugar?”
“Your brother Declan lent it to me. ” When he looked up at her with raised brows, she nodded. “Dunnottar has a library, you know. Well, it’s mostly in ruins, but a tidy collection of classics seems to have survived the devastation. ”
A peculiar look furrowed his brow. “You even talk like a book, you know it?”
Frowning, she looked down.
With a fingertip to her chin, he tilted her face back up. “It’s a good thing. ”
“Well, what of you?” she asked defensively. “You speak very well yourself, despite the… for a …”
“For a man who’s spent much time in shackles?” He gave her a careless shrug, seeming to sense how she regretted her words. “Don’t worry, you can speak of it. It’s not as though it ever slips my mind. ”
She tried to keep her face a blank, though she wanted to cringe. How would Aidan ever forget his past, how could he ever forget the outcast he’d become, when men like her father were quick with their suspicions to remind him?
“Yes,” she said. “You speak well, especially for one who’s led a life of such privation and cruelty. ”
But even as she said it, she knew. She’d seen for herself just how smart Aidan was. Unlike most men, who postured arrogance and pretended to know it all, he was ever ready with another question on his tongue, as if he could make up for his lost years of refinement and education in their evening lessons alone.
“I’ll tell you where I got all my pretty turns of phrase, luvvie. Though you may not like to hear it. You see, early on, I learned the true currency of the Indies. Husbands are never about, and that leaves the wives, and they’ve a taste for parlor talk arou
nd rough-looking men with gently bred voices. ” He sneered. “I spent my mornings chesthigh in the cane, and my evenings serving rumbullion and fruit to rooms full of rich plantation women, bored of the heat and their entitlement. ”
Her mind spun with the hideous image. What else might bored plantation wives have wanted of their indentured servants? She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came to her.
Aidan’s laugh was self-deprecating. He shoved The Iliad back in her hands. “I’m certain Achilles makes a better story. ”
He leaned forward, resting elbows on knees, watching her. He tried to look casual, but Elspeth saw his shoulders were flexed taut. “So you and Declan, is it?”
“Declan?” The odd question threw her, making her forget her earlier discomfort.
He nodded slowly. “Aye, Declan. Do you have a fancy for my brother or don’t you? He’d be able to talk bookish things with you. ”
“Declan?” she repeated. Was she misunderstanding the implication? Aidan had sounded wary—was he just a little vulnerable too? “No, not Declan,” she said, more slowly this time, and smiled at the relief she thought she saw along his brow. “He’s merely the self-proclaimed guardian of your family library. ”
He barked a quick laugh. “Self-proclaimed? Uncontested, more like. Can you truly imagine someone else caring two whits about a library? Bridget? Gregor, mayhap?”
She allowed herself a giggle. “No, I suppose not. ”
He nodded to the book forgotten in her hands. “Well, shall we get on with Sir Achilles? You say he was a warrior. ”
“Indeed. ” She smiled, thinking the man next to her no less heroic than any of the Greek gods. “He was away for many years. So the story went, he could have either homecoming, or glory, but not both. ”
Aidan curled his lip. “I feel a kinship already. ”
She paused, realizing she needed to tread carefully. Her intent hadn’t been to draw any parallels between the real man and the literary one.
But then he told her, “Go on. ” When she raised questioning eyes to his, he added with a wink, “I like when you read. ”
That single wink had a catastrophic effect on her composure. Deciding the best course would be simply to let Homer speak for her, Elspeth went to the first page, and tilting it toward the fire, squinted to make out the words. It was growing dark, and it was always harder to read at night. She began, “ ‘Sing, Goddess, of the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles, murderous, doomed—’ ”
Aidan startled her with a loud laugh. “Such drama already. ”
She smiled back, and their gazes caught again, sending a ripple of pleasure across her skin. This time she let herself enjoy the connection for a breathtaking moment.
“I suppose you could say the Greeks had their histrionic proclivities, yes. Our Achilles was no different. ”
