Chapter Six
The sun held its control over the day. As they walked through the yard and out the gates, Ailis couldn’t help but peek over at him. She’d seen him only in the shadows of the dark corridors, corners and chambers in the keep. Now, she would finally see him.
She tugged the sleeves of her gown down as low as she could, still mindful of the appearance of her hands without the gloves to cover the worst of it. ’Twas an offering of a sort to him and she wondered how long it would take him to notice. As they walked along the road to the village, he didn’t speak at all. But she could feel his gaze on her when he looked out on the village.
“’Twas dark when I arrived,” he rasped. “I didna see the extent of the village.” His voice always began rough then it seemed to ease the more he spoke.
“Ye did not seek refuge with any of them?” she asked, pointing at the cottages and buildings along the road.
“Nay, I could see only the keep when the lightning flashed. I just kept walking to it.”
“Think of what could have happened if ye had sought the comfort of the miller’s cottage.” She pointed to it. “Or anywhere else.”
“Aye, just think of the possibilities, my lady.”
He tilted his head up and she could see his eyes clearly. . . and the merriment in them. He teased her. The laugh that escaped her felt good. A sense of humor was not a bad thing in a man. He chuckled and held out his hand for her.
Taking a deep breath, she placed her ungloved hands in his. The slight hitch in his breath told her he’d noticed.
“But, my lady,” he began. “I wonder if ye would feel better or worse for kenning that the pigsticker walked behind me to the keep.”
They laughed together and it eased some of Ailis’ fears. He found humor in this strange and tense situation, which spoke about his nature. Even if he didn’t know himself.
Some of the villagers called out greetings to her and she stopped to speak to several of the women along the road. Beitris’ husband had been injured recently and was not faring well. Old Elizabeth’s granddaughter had recovered from the fever that still tried to gain a foothold. Ailis promised beef broth from the keep’s kitchen for the child and promised the healer would visit Beitris’ husband on the morrow.
Iain remained on the road when she stopped, but she felt him there, watching and listening to her every word. Soon, he accepted every small gift she received and tucked them under his arm to carry them. A loaf of bread. A ribbon. None were costly but each was precious to her.
For no matter had happened in her life, these people accepted her. When her mother died, it was here among them that she found true solace. When she lost. . . when Lachlan died, the women held comforted her and treated her burns. She fought off the sad thoughts and continued to make her way along the row of cottages.
By the time they reached the end of the road, all sorts of trinkets and treats that the villagers had presented to their lady filled with his arms. They were not heavy and so no burden to him, but they spoke of the regard and esteem in which these people held their lady. And from the way she spoke to each one, making inquiries, offering aid or supplies, she knew those who lived on the largess and condescension of their chieftain by name. Coming to his side, she took one look at his collection and laughed.
“I dinna think to bring a sack or basket for such things.”
“They are no trouble, my lady,” he said. Seeing the joy in her face as she greeted her people lightened his own spirit. “Are there more to see to?”
“Nay, no one to visit, but I had hoped to take ye to the sea.” She glanced down the road as it curved toward the sea.
“We could ask yer father’s men to take this back to the keep.”
The widening of her eyes spoke of her ignorance of those who followed their every move. Ah, so her father had a care for her, whether he did it to protect her or to spy on Iain mattered not. The MacKinnon would play both of them against each other if it suited his aims. Iain must remember that.
“Where?” she asked, hands on hips, as she turned to face the path they’d walked.
“There, my lady,” he said, pointing back two cottages. “And there.” The guards followed them, one on each side of the road, inching their way along as Ailis had walked at Iain’s side.
“Have they been following us all along?” Her pale brow furrowed and he almost reached out to touch and smooth it.
“Aye.”
He’d noticed them in the hall first and then as they walked from the keep. It made sense on her father’s part and confirmed what Iain suspected. The chieftain had no intention of allowing his daughter to marry some unknown stranger who’d appeared on his doorstep.
“Ronald!” she called out. Though the man looked like he wanted to disappear, he nodded and came to them. “I pray ye, take these things back to my chamber.”
“But, my lady,” Ronald said, glancing between the lady and his assignment. “I must stay. . . .”
“I see Robbie over there,” she said, pointing at the second guard. “He can follow along until ye return.”
When faced with the lady’s orders, the man did the only thing left to him. He gathered up everything that Iain held and walked away, nodding to Robbie as he walked past him. With that settled, she stepped back to Iain’s side and waited until he raised his arm for her.
She directed him toward the path to the sea. The air grew saltier and the winds picked up as they climbed a small rise and stood at the top looking out at the water.
“The harbor is to the west of the castle,” she said, pointing past the stone walls. “This part is mostly unapproachable by sea due to the sea stacks and rock formations all along this coast.”
That made Dun Ara Castle safe from most invasions using the sea. Guard the small harbor, he could see, and the only approach was by land.
Iain looked farther across the sea knowing that Coll lay closest to them, with Barra and Rum and Skye some distance across the sea. His father’s people were on those islands.
“Ye did it again.” Iain turned to find her studying him as he studied the sea. “Ye make a sound, like a slight inhalation, and stop moving.” She stepped to him, standing between him and the sea. “Is that when a memory returns to ye?”
He nodded, unable to speak as he struggled to find and keep the bit of knowledge he’d just gained.
“What did ye remember? Just then?” she asked, her body close enough to feel her heat. She placed her hand, her ungloved hand, on his chest, making it hard to breathe.
“Something about my father’s kin. Here,” he nodded at the lands to the south of where they stood now. “And out there, too.” He gazed over her head and across the sea to the islands in the distance.
“What other memories have returned?” she asked quietly, lifting her head, staring into the openings in the fabric where his eyes lay. Could she see his eyes? See him there within?
“Ye. Ye are there, too.”
He admitted it against his will. He wanted her to know that she somehow lived in his thoughts. In that moment, all he wanted to do was touch her. Feel her skin on his. Mayhap that would make him remember why she was such a presence during his recovery.
All it would take was for him to tug his own glove off, as she had hers, and touch her. Reaching behind his back, he grasped the tips of one glove and pulled it off.
Iain lifted his hand as the skin tingled at the feeling of the air on it. She gasped at his touch, as he slid his fingers over her hand on his chest and wrapped them around hers.
Other than the good brothers touching him in their care of his wounds, he had neither sought nor desired the touch of another until now. And, even as he felt the uneven ridges of flesh on the top of her hand, he knew she could see the same on his.
Something shifted in him. A hope that she wouldn’t shy away from him or his touch. A prayer that she understood the step he took and his appreciation of the one she had. An awareness of how right it was to hold her. To be close to her. To touch her. To kiss. . . .
His mouth was on hers before the thought finished. She opened to him. He dipped his tongue deeply inside her mouth, searching and tasting. His body reacted to the touch of her tongue against his, hardening and readying. She slid her hand off his chest and she entwined their fingers, keeping their hands touching.
The kiss intensified and he wanted more. To touch more and taste more. To have more. He noticed when she slid her hand along his arm to rest on his shoulder. Iain used his other hand to claim her, pulling her tight against him.
She fit. Her mouth fit his.
Her body against his felt right. She moaned. He found her staring into his eyes as their mouths possessed each other. In that moment, Iain knew that she must be his. She was his. He tugged his other hand free and placed both around her head, sliding into her hair so he could take her mouth as he wanted to take her body.
They had done this before, of that he was certain. They had kissed and touched and possessed one another. But when? Then her hands sought purchase and touched his back and he pulled back.
“Did I do something wrong?” she asked in a whisper, her voice filled with passion and wanting. She released her grasp on him, reaching up to cover his hands as they gripped her head.
So why couldn’t he remember her? What would make his mind not want to remember her? He searched every inch of her face, willing himself to remember who she was to him, but nothing. Had she something to do with what happened to him?
“Nay. ’Tis a wonder to me how ye feel. How ye fit to me.”
He wasn’t ready to explain the memories of her or describe the intensity and pleasure of them. Mayhap ’twas as the good brother who treated injuries said after all? That the woman in his dreams was not real, but a manifestation of his memories. But that was before he’d walked into Dun Ara and seen her.
Iain had just spoken her very thoughts back to her.
The last thing she needed to be doing was falling under this stranger’s enticement. As she faced her father’s ire and Davina’s disapproval, Ailis needed a clear head and a plan to thwart her father. This man clearly muddled those for her. She’d held out this long, avoiding any man’s attentions or intentions, and wasn’t ready to behave as though all was well.
Ailis glanced up at Iain and noticed the way her lips felt swollen from his kisses. How she’d pressed against him during those kisses, losing herself to the passion as she did with. . . Lachlan.
She narrowed her gaze and studied what she could see of him and his form. Something in him was calling up her own memories of the man she’d loved, to whom she’d pledged her love, heart and body. But what was it?
He shifted, taking a step away, as her father’s guard called out to them. Would the men report back to her father that she had flung herself into this stranger’s arms? She heard the slow, deep breathing as he held out his hand, his bare hand, to her. Ailis placed her palm in his hand, feeling the uneven skin under her touch.
They walked in silence back toward the village, leaving the sea and the memories and that kiss behind. Ailis couldn’t help herself. She thought of Lachlan’s kisses and the way their hands would touch, fingers entwined. And the way he would kiss her until they were breathless and panting in want and need.
He slowed his pace to keep their strides matched, his longer legs covering the same distance much faster than she could. With each matched step, comfort filled her. It felt right at his side. Which was mad and not something that should be.
It should be Lachlan at her side.
It should be Lachlan she married.
But, she thought with a glance up at this masked stranger, if she didn’t come up with a plan to circumvent her father’s will, this was the man she would marry in just a few days.
Could she betray Lachlan’s memory in that way? Could she betray their love?