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“Ye’ve hardly said a word to me.” She looked sideways.
He cocked his head, “What of it?”
“I thought we had an understanding between us.” She pulled herself to a sitting position.
He sat back and rubbed his face, “Ye started one aye, and now ye ken that I daenae have any issue with ye wearing men’s clothing.”
“And that ye do think me faither still has a part in yer maither and sister’s disappearance,” Olivia said calmly, as if she was afraid of angering him again. As she was stating truth, he didn’t feel any reason to grow angry.
A maid came and set roasted fowl pies, bread, butter, and goblets of cider before them and then she curtsied away. They slipped into silence while a dismal memory of his mother, teaching him etiquette to languages to dancing, rested on his mind, robbing him of his hunger but he forced himself to eat anyhow.
“That’s all,” he said standing, and before he left the room, turned to her. “Me sewing women will be fitting ye for the wedding dress on the morrow.”
She was confused by his abrupt demeanor change. Conner could see the questions in her eyes, but he had no answer for them. As time would go by, she would realize he did not have answers for a lot of things —especially the sudden, inexplicable tenderness he felt for her.
It’s nay tenderness, t’is sorrow that she got forced to marry me. She deserves better.
He went off trying to convince himself that was the true reason—he failed.
Chapter 6
That evening, after setting fire to an oiled cloth, Olivia, clad in her night-shift, went about lighting every tallow candle in the room, including a candelabra with three wicks that rested upon the enormous hearth. Next, she crossed the room and lit the oil lamp that rested on the small table before finding a seat and slumping into it. It was far from gracious and ladylike, but she could not feel the urge to be either.
Ó Riagáin’s mercurial moods were troubling her. At one moment she would be led to believe they had an understanding, an accord, but then he would… change. She had never met a man who could change from tense and unyielding to teasing—even though she doubted he knew that was what he’d done—and then to growing more somber than a graveyard.
I had suspected he is more than he seemed but now…. I think he is still very much haunted about his missing kin.
Gazing at the flickering flames, she wished that somehow, something or someone would give her the first step to understanding Ó Riagáin. Unable to find any inkling, she went off to the enormous four-poster bed, festooned with thick drapes. It took her forever and a day to drift off. Each time she closed her eyes, she saw his shifting eyes, clenched jaw, and the thick muscled arms. She could scarcely breathe. All night she’d tried to block the images of his hard masculine flesh. A powerful yearning twisted inside her, rending her belly a mass of knots.
She forced herself to sleep—she had a long morning ahead of her. Even so, fleeting images of Ó Riagáin flitted through her mind and she woke aching.
* * *
When the women paraded the bolts of silk before her, Olivia felt stunned. The rich, sapphire blue silk felt cool to the touch, but the gray silk was so luxurious. Drawing out a fine, almost transparent slip of emerald-green silk gauze, she pulled it a little, as rich gold caught her eyes. The measurements were done, it was now up to her to choose the cloth.
“Have ye made yer choice, me lady?” Ana asked.
“I—” she paused, “Daenae tell me his lairdship bought all these for me?”
“Nay,” another lady said, “His lairdship has enough bolts of silk in his storerooms to make a thousand gowns for a thousand women.”
Casting a look over the offerings, she said, “Gold and green, just like his tartan.”
Olivia tried not to show that she had seen the looks of approval pass between two of the older women in the room and turned away. “Is that all?”
“Aye, Lady Olivia,” the eldest seamstress stood. “We’ll be on our way.”
“Thank ye,” she said as they left the room then calmly closed the door behind them. Overwhelmed, she sat on the edge of the bed and looked down at her hands, worn and callused by years of grasping a sword’s pommel.
Standing, she silently went to her trunks and changed into a set of breeches and a shirt. The need to ride rested thickly in her blood and thankfully, her father had sent over her horse yestereve. She was sure someone would show her the way to the stables.
As she had expected, a few washing women pointed her into the direction, and while a few men openly gaped at her clothes, it did not bother her. Since Ó Riagáin had given her his assent, that was all she needed.
The stable lay to the west of the settlement, a good walk from some storehouse and tool shed. The door to the stable was slightly ajar, so she pushed it open with her shoulder and stepped inside. The stable smelled of dung and straw, but to her it was a comforting, familiar, smell. She heard shoveling and chatters behind the stable but did not mind it too much.
The dusty air was warm, heated by the many horses huddled together in their stalls. From tall and dark to short and fair, the horses gathered—much like the stable at her home— showed Ó Riagáin’s wealth.
“T’is nay me home anymore,” she whispered as a movement near the far wall of the stable caught her eye. She walked toward it tentatively, carefully avoiding the piles of dung.
