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“The same.” He nodded. “So, Father is afraid something like that might happen and wants to prevent unforeseen developments.”
“But you are young and got all your life before you.” She contemporised.
“You are right. There is no spare, though.”
The implication crystalline clear. Should the boy fall sick or, worse, suffer an attack from some rival kin bent on the chieftainship the bloodline would die. Question being why the Laird did not marry again. He had been a widower for more than a decade. Inappropriate to ask, so she kept her silence.
“What are you reading there?” She changed the direction of their talk. Enough of the giant hassle.
“A treaty on botanic.” His hand turned the book to her.
Rather complex a subject for such a young mind, she concluded. “You have different interests.”
A proud smile came to his callow stance. “I do. My dream was to go to Oxford and become a man of science.”
Aileen felt sorry for Sam. “What does your father say about it?” Needless to ask, obvious.
A sad glint came to his eyes. “Says my duty is here, for the clan.”
That at such a tender age he must deal with a disappointment he would carry for life imprinted sorrow in her. Oxford meant costly fees, but money was no object here, was it? Pig-headed man!
The mood dispelled as he said, “I have a hot house where I try new breeds of plants. Would you like to see it?”
“I would be honoured.” They headed there.
~.~.~
And that had been where Taran found them after enquires. On their hunches, heads almost touching, hands on a foreign-looking plant, her fingers caressing it in a way which made him wish to be a vegetable.
If even spending the whole morning in the fields preparing for harvest did not wear off the renewed irritation, he did not know what would. And better not to ask, lest he got a very explicit image of the ‘method’. And the woman!
Banging the door none too silently, two heads snapped to him. “What might the two of you be doing alone in an enclosed space?” She certainly heard of decorum, did she not?
“Father.” Sam stood up, a quizzical look about him. “I was just showing Aileen a specimen of Bromeliaceae from South America.”
His son’s enthusiasm for botanic could be admiring, but he found he was incapable to cope with the acid pouring in his guts right now. “Out with you before you set tongues wagging.”
Hurt sat behind Sam’s glasses, adding guilt to the acid. What kind of monster was he becoming?
Without a word, Sam left to reveal an Aileen staring at him hard. “What was that for, anyway?”
“If I come to learn you are doing something untoward, you will have a lot to answer for, you bet.” Taut arms crossed, he shot her a stony stare.
Befuddlement smothered her goddess-like face. “Untoward! Are you crazy?”
He believed he was. Or got excessively near it. He did not understand in fact. “He is young and inexperienced. You should be careful.”
Her chin lifted and her mahogany beacons attacked him full on with varied weapons. Anger, indignation. And that volcanic thing he did not fathom what to do with, too. “In your own words, he is of age and we are to be betrothed!” She hissed vehement.
The hothouse became… hot. “You accepted him then?” And why he took a disgust for his own idea, he did not reckon.
A derogatory laugh breathed out of her illicit-thought-inducing lips. “You are forcing us into it.”
So he was. “An heir is in demand.”
One fist on her slim waist, the sway that brought her to inches from him had vexation lining it heavily. Aniseed and woman’s scent dumped on him like a wheelbarrow full of fragrant leaves. The hothouse seemed to have gone up in flames as his guts responded to her with fiery eagerness.
“I.” She stabbed him with an elegant forefinger. “Am.” Second stab. “Not” Third stab. “A.” Another “Brooding.” Yet another. “Mare!”
