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“Garric,” she called out, pleased to see the great stallion lift its black velvet-soft nose over the stall door. “That’s my boy,” she murmured.
Even when he had been a foal, she had not seen a finer one even in her father’s stables and had begged for years to have him. Seeking a brush to rub him down, she spied one and was close to taking it until a few men came in, laughing and shoving each other. At the sight of her, they stopped, and a look passed between the three.
“Can I ‘elp ye, miss?” one asked.
“Aye,” she said, “Can ye rub down me horse and get him saddled? I would like to take him out this morn.”
The man nodded and quickly brushed the horse down and saddled him but fumbled with a buckle. Anxious to get out, Olivia bent towards him, “Here, let me do that.” Quickly, her expert fingers deftly threaded the leather strap through the metal buckle. “There, now,” she muttered, satisfied. Rising to her feet, she brushed the straw from the knees of her buckskins. “Thank ye.”
Once out in the open, the large horse nudged his mistress with his velvety nose and paced where he stood, as if to speed them on their way already. The cool autumn afternoon seemed to beckon to them. Without even a backward glance at the two men watching her from the stables, Olivia slid easily onto the stallion’s back.
The breeze played with loose strands of her hair as she rode at a canter and while marking her way, she found herself at the edge of a loch that she assumed flowed into the sea. Warmed by the benign sun, she watched as a gull landed on the glistening water, plucking up fish with ease while ravens picked at the bones of some poor creature. She took the side strip and watched the gentle waves mirror the deep blue of the cloudless sky.
The atmosphere was peaceful, the landscape covered with colorful little dots, heathers and wildflowers swaying in the breeze. It was paradise. Realization hit her just as she approached a spit.
Aye, this is me home now for the rest of me life.
Staring out at the stretch of blue, she wondered if Ó Riagáin would let her take a trip to the mainland when spring came. The clomps of another horse’s hooves had her turning. Ó Riagáin looked like a king atop such a majestic and intimidating, horse. He angled his mount to stand beside her.
“How did ye find this place?”
“I wandered,” she replied.
“‘Tis not safe for you to venture out alone,” he murmured.
Olivia nearly laughed but refrained, “I have me daggers with me and I am a very quick runner.”
Silence lapsed between them but she found it not to be oppressive. From a corner of her eyes she spotted a particular look on Ó Riagáin’s face—almost wistful. For a man who did not show emotions much, this place was pulling some out of him and she wondered why.
“Is this place special to ye?” She asked quietly.
“Me maither and sister would come this way every summer morning to hunt healing plants that grew by the waterway,” he murmured. “Me maither was a healer and me sister was training in that way.”
“Ah,” Olivia said.
She searched for words but there were not any fitting phrases to be found. How would someone reply to that? Ó Riagáin was still haunted by their abduction. She could not utter a hopeful word that they would be found because it would ring hollow, nor could she comfort him as that too would possibly bring on more hurt than calm.
“Me Laird?”
“Hm?”
“When ye imagined ye would marry, what did ye think the lady would be like?” Olivia asked.
“I cannae tell ye, lass,” he said while turning his horse. “For the last ten years, marriage was the last thing on me mind.”
She watched him go, while another pang of sympathy and sorrow for him rested on her breast. The poor man was still suffering, and she knew that there was nothing she—or anyone except the sudden return of his family—could do to make it better.
* * *
The memory of Olivia at the waterside—a place he visited daily, but she did not know that—looped through his mind all morning. By the time Conner had gone to his private room to go over all the preparations of the wedding, he had a fixed image of her clad in breeches in his mind.
They were scandalously tight.
How easily would it be to cup her round bottom perched so perfectly in that saddle, molding her to him, lifting her against his arousal—which had decided to resurrect itself at the most inconvenient time. Scowling, he tried to fix his mind on the papers before him, but the tantalizing thought of her in his bed, moonlight splayed all over her fair skin, stopped him.
Gritting his teeth, he glared at the paper before him, as if it had wronged him.
For heaven’s sake, the wedding is on the morrow. I’m not a greenling, a pretty lass in breeches shouldnae be turning me head so easily.
