When they reached the house, Alex went to the byre, saying he preferred the beasts’ company to Ian’s. Niall must have taken himself off somewhere as well, for there was no sign of him. Ian found his mother alone, stitching by the fire.
“How’s da?” he asked.
“Sleeping.”
Ian sat with his arms folded, waiting for Sìleas and Gòrdan.
His mother looked up from her sewing. “What’s troubling ye, son?”
“I am trying to understand why my family appears to have encouraged Sìleas to go off alone with Gòrdan every chance she gets,” he said, grinding out the words. “Ye know how that looks, mam. Sìl didn’t have a mother who taught her that sort of behavior could earn her a reputation, but ye know better. Why did ye not tell her?”
His mother arched her eyebrows. “If ye were concerned about your wife’s behavior, perhaps ye should have come home sooner.”
“I didn’t know she was traipsing all over the Isle of Skye with Gòrdan Graumach MacDonald.” And traipsing had damned well better be all she was doing with Gòrdan.
“Ach, men,” his mother murmured and went back to her stitching. “What ye should be doing is thanking Gòrdan for looking after her.”
“I should be thanking him?” Ian said, working hard not to shout at his mother.
“Ye can’t expect her to stay cooped up in the house all the time,” his mother said. “Your da never let her go out alone for fear her MacKinnon relations would try to snatch her. Since he was injured and the other men quit working our lands, Gòrdan has been kind enough to accompany Sìleas when your brother can’t.”
“Hmmph,” Ian snorted. “Gòrdan has something in mind other than protecting her.”
“Gòrdan is an honorable man,” his mother said. “If ye don’t want Sìleas for a wife, I’d be glad for her to have Gòrdan as her husband.”
Ian sat up straight. “As her husband, ye say?”
“Keep your voice down. You’ll wake your da.”
Before Ian came home, his plan had been to see Sìleas settled with a good man. But Gòrdan? He would never do for her.
“It would be a good match for our Sìleas—except for Gòrdan’s mother, of course.” She clucked her tongue. “That woman will be a trial to any daughter-in-law.”
“It would be a good match—except for his mother?” Ian bit out. He couldn’t believe he was hearing this.
“Aye, it would,” his mother, breaking the thread with her teeth. “Losing Sìleas would be like losing my baby daughters all over again. If she isn’t going to remain part of our family, then it would please me to have her close by.”
“What makes ye think I’ll let Gòrdan have her?”
His mother set her sewing aside and gave him a soft smile. “If ye want Sìleas as your wife, don’t ye think it’s time ye told her?”
At the sound of the door opening, Ian jumped to his feet. Sìleas came in, looking over her shoulder and laughing. She was a vision, with her cheeks rosy from the cold and loose tendrils of hair curling about her face.
Her laughter died when she turned and saw him.
“Where have ye been?” Ian stood in front of her waiting for an explanation.
“With Gòrdan,” she said, as she slipped off her cloak and handed it to Gòrdan to hang by the door.
“I did not see ye on the path,” Ian said.
“We weren’t on the path,” she said, then turned to speak to his mother. “Such a lovely afternoon for this time of year. No, don’t get up, Beitris. I’ll see to supper.”
She brushed past Ian and headed for the kitchen without so much as a glance at him. He was about to follow her when Alex stuck his head through the front door.
“Niall and I could use your help with one of the horses,” Alex called, then shut the door again.
Ian stormed outside and found Alex waiting for him by the byre. “What do ye need me for? You’re the best man with horses.”
“I didn’t call ye out for help with the damned horses,” Alex said in a low voice. “Your brother is in the byre, and he’s in such a fury he’s like to put the cows off their milk.”
“I don’t have time now,” Ian said, clenching his fists. “I need to talk with Sìleas.”
“Just now, I think ye need to speak with your brother more. I’ve tried telling Niall that ye are not the horse’s ass ye seem to be, but I fear I wasn’t too convincing.” Alex slapped Ian on the back. “Go talk to the lad.”
“Ach!” Ian banged into the byre and found Niall brushing his horse down.
When Niall looked up and saw him, he threw the brush against the wall.
Ian grabbed Niall as he stormed past him. “Niall, what is—”
“Go back to France!” Niall shouted in his face.
Ian blocked Niall’s arm when he tried to drive his fist into Ian’s face. Before Niall could punch him with his other hand, Ian spun him around and held him by the neck. His own temper was flaming now.
“You’re a long way from taking your big brother, so I suggest ye not try that again,” Ian hissed in Naill’s ear.
There was no point in talking when they were both so angry, so he let his brother go.
Ian watched Niall’s stiff back as he stalked out of the byre with his fists clenched. So much for following Alex’s advice. Ian finished brushing the horse to calm himself before going back to the house.
By the time he got to the table, his brother and Gòrdan were sitting on either side of Sìleas, and Alex had taken the seat across from her. He sat down and glared at Alex as he started shoveling his food down.
His mother was speaking to him, but Ian couldn’t follow what she was saying when it was plain as day that Gòrdan was set on stealing Sìleas away—right under his own roof. God’s bones, the man’s gaze never left her face.
And what was Alex up to? He was putting on a full show of his dazzling charm. And from the way Sìl laughed at Alex’s foolish remarks, his charm was working.
Ian could hardly choke down his food.
Sìleas was determined to be cheerful. Damn Ian MacDonald anyway. First, he demands she ride with him, leading her to believe he was going to play the part of her husband before half the clan at the church. Then, as soon as they arrive, he sends her off as if she were still a child.
She threw her head back and laughed at Alex’s joke, though she had missed the first half of it entirely.
Was it too much to ask Ian to sit beside her? For five years, she’d had to listen to the women’s remarks about her missing husband. If one more matron had given her a look of sympathy today, she would have screamed right there in the church. And then the women would have even more to talk about.
She should be used to the humiliation by now. But it had been harder than she expected to watch mother after mother bring her babe forward to be baptized, while her own arms were empty.
Ian wasn’t even waiting for her at the church door. Fortunately, Gòrdan had been kind enough to take her home as soon as the ordeal was over. Of course, that meant she had to suffer Gòrdan’s pleading looks, but at least he had the good sense not to press her today.
“We need to tell them about the men we saw,” Gòrdan said in a low voice while the others were talking.
“No,” she mouthed.
Gòrdan didn’t look happy about it, but he’d do as she asked. She didn’t want to worry Beitris and Payton over nothing, just when they were both getting so much better. When she and Gòrdan saw the three strangers coming toward them on the path, she panicked, thinking they could be MacKinnons coming after her.
It was foolish. Why would they come for her after all this time? All the same, she and Gòrdan slipped off the path. They took the shortcut to his house, where he gave her a nip of whiskey while his mother scowled at her.
“What’s that you’re saying?” Ian asked, glaring at Gòrdan from the far end of the table.
She kicked Gòrdan to remind him of his promise to say nothing.
“That I’d best be getting home,” Gòrdan said and stood up. “My mother will be waiting.”
She tilted her head back and gave Gòrdan a grateful smile for not telling. “Thanks for seeing me home safe.”
No sooner had Gòrdan gone than there was a knocking at the door.
“I’ll get it,” Alex said.
When he opened the door, in came Dina, a woman men followed around as if she had some dark secret to share with them. Sìleas heard at the church today that Dina’s husband caught her in their bed with another man—which was no surprise to anyone but him—and tossed her out.
Unease settled in Sìleas’s stomach when Dina dropped a heavy cloth bag inside the door.
“Thank ye for taking me in,” Dina said, dipping her head to Ian’s mother. “I’m a good cook, and I’ll do my best to lend a hand wherever ye need it.”
From the startled look on Beitris’s face, the invitation to join their household had not come from her.
“Ian and I told Dina ye would be happy for her help,” Alex said.
Sìleas shot a look at Ian, who was glaring at Alex, as if he was not pleased with Alex for mentioning his role in this. How could Ian do this to her, on top of everything else? It was one humiliation too many.
The awful memory flooded her vision. She must have been nine years old. Ian had told her—repeatedly—that he was “a man now” and couldn’t have her following him everywhere anymore. Of course, she had paid no heed.
Until the day she came upon him behind a shepherd’s hut with Dina’s legs wrapped around his waist.
Ach, he’d forgotten all about Dina. He should have warned his mother. Why did Alex have to go and invite her? Wasn’t there enough trouble in the house?
“I’ll take Payton’s supper to him,” Sìleas said, getting up without so much as a glance Ian’s way. “Ye must be hungry, Dina. Take my seat.”
Ian noticed Sìleas had not touched her own supper.
After they finished their meal, he and Alex went in to talk with Payton. When Ian attempted to catch Sìleas’s eye, she abruptly left the room, leaving a cold frost in her wake.
Ian wanted to go after her, but his father was waiting to hear what happened at the church. He showed some of his old spirit as they discussed what needed to be done next. Since his father had taken a long nap, he didn’t tire for a good long while.
By the time Ian and Alex returned to the hall, it was empty.
“Damn it,” Ian said. “I wanted to talk to Sìleas tonight.”
“Talk?” Alex said, elbowing him. “I thought your plan was to take that lass to bed and make a proper wife of her today.”
“She doesn’t make it easy,” Ian said, taking down the jug of whiskey and two cups from the shelf. “The looks she gives me could fry eggs.”
“Ach, Sìleas is just upset because you’ve kept her waiting.” Alex patted his chest. “Ye can be sure I wouldn’t have.”
“Oh, aye, for certain ye would be ready to jump into marriage,” Ian said, then tossed back his first drink.
“Not me, but we both know ye are the sort to marry.” Alex drank his own cup down and signaled for more. “Ye will do no better than Sìleas. That lass has fire in her.”
Before drinking down their second round, they clinked their cups together and chanted, “It’s no health if the glass is not emptied.”
“What can I do?” Ian said, wiping his mouth. “She acts as if she hates me. And she’s always running off with that Gòrdan Graumach.”
“Ye can’t let Gòrdan have her—he’s too dull for a lass with her spark.” Alex waggled his eyebrows. “I’d know what to do with that spark.”
“This is no time for your joking,” Ian said, his irritation rising. “And I’m more than a wee bit tired of hearing what ye would do in my place.”
“Who says I’m joking?” Alex lifted one shoulder. “Wouldn’t ye rather see her with me than with Gòrdan? Ach, she’d be wasted on a man with so little imagination.”
“I don’t appreciate ye speaking about my wife that way,” Ian said, clenching his fists.
“If ye are so foolish as to let Sìleas go without fighting for her, ye don’t deserve her.” Alex leaned forward, his expression serious. “And if ye don’t make her your true wife soon, ye are going to lose her.”
“She is my wife,” Ian said through his teeth. “And I intend to keep her.”
“Then you’d best do something about it,” Alex said. “I grew up with a bitter woman, so I can tell ye—a woman will only forgive so much before she comes to hate ye.”
That was a depressing thought; they both took another drink.
“Speaking of your folks,” Ian said, “when are ye going to go see them?”
“No matter which I see first, I’ll never hear the end of it from the other.” Alex blew out a long breath. “I’ll wait until the Samhain gathering, so I can see them both at once.”
“How many times has your mother tried to poison your da?” Ian asked, without expecting an answer. “Doesn’t it strike ye as odd that neither of them married again?”
“Praise God they haven’t undertaken to torture anyone else. The only thing the two of them can agree upon is that I should make the same mistake. They want me to marry and produce an heir.” Alex shook his head. “Perhaps I should rescue Sìleas from Gòrdan. It would be no hardship to set to work on getting an heir with her.”
Ian reached across the table and grabbed Alex by the front of his shirt. “I warned ye not to speak of her that way.”
He was stopped from punching his cousin in the face by a light laugh behind him. He turned to see Dina saunter in from the kitchen.
“Fighting over me already, are ye?” she said.
“Don’t hurry to the cottage,” Alex said to Ian before he pushed himself up from the table. He put his arm around Dina’s shoulders and walked with her toward the door.
Ian tipped more whiskey into his cup and swirled the golden liquid. He’d take good Scottish whiskey over French wine any day. He felt the pleasant burn as it slid down his throat. Hell, he’d take bad Scottish whiskey over the best French wine.
What was he doing sleeping in a cold bed every night—next to Alex, for God’s sake. Sìleas was his wife, wasn’t she? She was sleeping in his room—in his bed, no less.
They’d said vows before a priest. Surely that meant something? True, he’d been ready to give Sìleas up, but that was before he’d returned to find her all grown up.
Lord help him, Sìleas had grown up fine.
He thought of her full breasts, the mesmerizing swish of her skirts as she climbed the stairs, the sparkle in her green eyes, the creamy skin that showed at her throat above her gown.
His cup was empty, so he took a long pull straight from the jug.
He wanted to see more of that creamy skin. To smell it. To run his tongue over every inch of it. And there was no reason he shouldn’t. Sìleas belonged to him. The church had joined them.
Damn it, he shouldn’t have hesitated. That was where the problem lay. All he needed to do now was show her he wanted to be a husband to her.
But was he ready to give up other women? Was he ready to say she would be the last woman he bedded? He thought about it for a moment.
Hell, yes.
He would show her just how much he wanted her. Sìl was a fiery thing, always was. She’d be everything he wanted in bed, he knew it without a doubt. And he’d be everything she wanted. She damned well wouldn’t look twice at that Gòrdan Graumach again.
He slammed his cup down on the table. It was time. His decision was made. By God, he was ready to commit himself.
It was going to be a night to remember.