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“Alisdair MacLeod!” Lady Moira scolded, as if he were a boy again, caught stealing apples from the table. “Ye are comin’ to the kitchens right this moment.”
Before he could argue further, she had already grabbed his arm and was tugging him out of his chair. Not that the frail woman could actually move him an inch, but he noticed how lively and happy she looked, how long it had been since he had last seen her cheeks flushed like that. So he followed her, reluctantly.
He heard the commotion before he laid eyes on it. If he had thought the war room was chaos, the kitchens made a mockery of that comparison. Trays rushed back and forth, pots were stirred without pause, and mountains of vegetables were chopped with quick knives. And yet beneath the noise ran something calmer, warmer, almost creative—the smell of bread baking and the fragrance of herbs.
He was about to tell his aunt that he was pleased with the preparations, ready to be done with the whole visit, when he saw Isla right in the middle of it all.
He leaned forward, instantly interested. She stood at a table in the middle of the kitchen, sunlight pouring through the big window behind her, catching the blue of her eyes. Her hair was pinned up off her face, and her sleeves were rolled up to the elbow. Both her hands were covered in flour, a smudge of it marking her cheeks.
She was kneading dough while laughing at something an older maid was saying. The women around her teased her right back, and she said something that made their laughter soar higher. She then covered the dough to rest, wiped her hands, and moved to another table to help with the oatcakes.
He couldn’t stop watching her—the way she guided a younger maid, the efficiency of her movements paired with such grace, the care she put into every small gesture. No task seemed beneath her. She wiped and chopped and carried.
“She has been helping all morning,” Lady Moira said from beside him.
He knew he should look away, but he couldn’t. Just as he began the herculean effort of arranging his face into indifference and turning to leave, a maid carrying a large bowl of flour stumbled past Isla. The bowl flew from her hands, and the flour exploded onto Isla’s skirts.
Everyone froze.
The maid gasped, clapping both hands over her mouth. “I am sorry, me Lady.”
Isla looked down at herself—flour dusting her dress, her hair, even the tip of her nose. For one suspended moment, the whole kitchen waited for her anger. But then she burst into laughter, bright and warm.
Alisdair’s breath caught at the sound.
“There now. I’ve been properly dusted. I daresay I’ll bake better for it.”
The whole kitchen erupted into laughter.
“Would ye look at that,” Lady Moira murmured, her eyes bright with pride. “The lass might survive bein’ a MacLeod, after all.”
Alisdair said nothing, only watched as Isla brushed herself off and helped the mortified maid clean up in turn. The maids spoke easily with her now, laughing and asking her opinion on this or that. It was as if she had always belonged here, in this kitchen, in this castle.
He fought to tear his eyes away, and failed. He could tell himself all he liked that this was simply appreciation for the true heart of his castle and his clan—these women, whatever men liked to believe about who really ran a castle.
But he knew perfectly well that it was her. It was as if he had fallen under some spell and nothing else in the world existed but her.
Beyond the quiet relief of seeing her warm and kind, thoughtful and funny, there was another ache too, something more primal, adding to his torment.
It was the dip of her waist, the swell of her breasts, the curve of her lips, the slope of her neck.
Dang it!
Alisdair cursed his own traitorous body, turned, and walked away without saying a word.
The following morning, Alisdair was still hunched over the same paperwork.
“Alisdair.” Ewan knocked on his door.
“Come in.”
“We need to talk, Braither.”
“Later. I need to finish this.”
“That is the point,” Ewan insisted.
Alisdair scowled at his brother. Ewan had never once hidden how little he liked having Isla in the castle.
