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“Is Lady Aileen coming down for dinner?” He asked casually enough and expected it to fool his son.
Her presence pulled at him. In the end of a hard working day, the expectation of having her at dinner lay in him, like the sun on the horizon guiding him home
The boy shrugged, not looking at him. “I cannot tell. I have not seen her the whole day.”
Sam had been avoiding him since the tableau in the hothouse. No wonder. Air stifled in his lungs, he forced himself to talk to the boy. “Look, son, I am sorry for the other day.” A pair of green eyes mirrored his. “It has been hectic here and my behaviour could use a little improvement.”
“Your temper, you mean.”
Said temper constituted another problem, for it ignited due to certain circumstances. Or people. Or a person. Or a woman.
Buidy hell!
For someone so young, he comported with maturity beyond his years. Never displayed a rebellious attitude, like so many at his age. Perhaps, losing his mother so early made him more introspect. He cared not for remembering Fiona if ever he did.
“You are right.” He answered. “I will try not to repeat it.”
“Thank you.” He took a sip of his water.
Since he remembered, Taran enjoyed his son’s company, even if his heir displayed a rather intellectual disposition, utterly foreign for a clan’s chief. The father neither encouraged it nor stanched it, realising how important studies were to him.
Oxford proved to be one request too many though. Taran had given the boy the books he asked, the research material he coveted and the hothouse. Quite sufficient, he determined. Sam’s place was here to lead his people and not studying any abstract subject in a dusty classroom somewhere. Of course, the boy was not happy about it. A father must put limits. Taran was merely six and thirty, but things happened and he wanted to make sure Sam would learn what to do if he found himself unable to perform his duties.
In his study, after dinner, something nagged at him. The manor seemed too quiet even if everything was the same, except for her skipping dinner. She did not always attend. The day they met in the hothouse an example.
That listed as another thing he cared not to remember.
Her appointed lady’s maid summoned. “Sent word she did not feel well, my laird.”
The fact did not satisfy him. At her chamber’s door, he knocked. No answer. Again. Still silence. Door shoved, no one inside it.
Damn the buidseach, the witch!
Like a bullet, he flew downstairs, stopping at the library. “She is gone.” He informed his astonished son before he had his horse readied for a trip.
Unmeasurable rage burned his guts. How did the madcap launch into the roads alone? Danger lurked everywhere! The possibility of her harmed maddened him. Foul language escaped him while he placed provisions on his horse and set a breakneck speed, the sun just disappearing in the horizon. Southwards he rode, naturally.
~.~.~
No inn around here, she concluded after walking for more than two hours. Complete darkness would befall soon, she must find shelter. Few people crossed her on the road, none posing a threat. She did not ask for anything for fear of a trap.
Extremely dangerous to travel at night though it would be a precious time to advance. Safety being more important.
In the distance, she devised a building. Possibly a farm. Feet headed in its direction to find it empty. The barn would have to do. The hay inviting enough, she ate and lay down for the night, dagger on the ready. Hours after a restful sleep, she waited for dawn.
She had been walking for about an hour when hoofs beat furiously on the ground. No doubt it would be the troglodyte. The woods would shelter her, she ran to them.
Too late. He saw her in the distance and yelled her name. On that magnificent horse, he made it in one night, she concluded.
She turned and waited. Right, next round.
The man jumped from the horse before it had stopped. Dishevelled sable hair, morning dark stubble on his angular jaw, wrinkled shirt and messy tartan, a wolf gone astray from its pack. There came that insane urge on her to hold him as if he intended to save her. Absurd. He abducted her, for pity’s sake!
“What do you think you are doing?” He shouted, marching on her, moss-green eyes darting not daggers but a whole bunch of lethal swords.
As he moved, his undone shirt went agape dishing her with the view of broad shoulders and an expanse of wide chest sprinkled with the blackest of fine hair.
She crossed her arms defensive. “I would reckon it obvious.”
