Chapter Eighteen
Iain waited as Mrs. O’Neal packed a basket for him. He intended to take Emily on a picnic. It was a sunny, warm day, and he wanted to take advantage of what could be the last of such days. It was also one of the things he had written on his list of things he could do to woo her and he felt he now had the strength to do that. His brothers had their moment of hilarity over his list for which he had thrashed them soundly. He also knew that they thoroughly approved of him courting Emily.
“How long should one court a woman?” he asked Mrs. O’Neal, and pretended not to notice how she rolled her eyes.
“Until ye have won her,” she answered, and set the basket on the table with enough force to make him jump. “And I don’t mean just into your bed.”
“Ah. I ken your opinion on all that. All my brothers told me.” He stood up and picked up the basket. “It is why I am working hard to woo her.”
“Ye have done this backwards.”
“Been told that, too,” he said, and walked out.
He found Emily in the stable saddling the mare he had gotten for her. She had named it Fancy and it made him smile. Iain set the basket near the doors and walked over to her, bending to kiss her neck then dodging out of the way when she jumped and her head went back. Seeing her pleasure over both mare and saddle had brought him a lot of pleasure, and the blushing gratitude she had offered had been very hard not to soothe with a lot of kisses.
“Careful, lass,” he said, laughing softly. “Nearly broke my nose there.”
Emily blushed. “I am sorry. You startled me.”
“I ken it. Bad thing to do to a lass who has been hunted. I am here to take ye on a picnic.” He pointed toward the basket. “Mrs. O’Neal packed us a basket.”
“That was very nice of her. You are going to take me on a picnic?” She went to the basket and peeked in. “Good heavens, the woman packed enough for a small army.”
Iain laughed and picked up the basket. “I thought we could ride out to that place on the trail ye like.” He set the basket down again as he saddled his horse and then hung the basket from his saddle. “Are ye willing to come with me?” He walked over to her and held out his hand.
Emily laughed and placed her hand in his. “Lead on, sir.”
He set her in her saddle then swung up into his own. For a while they rode side by side, saying nothing, simply enjoying the day. It was probably one of the last warm, sunny days they would be able to enjoy, Emily thought, as there were too many signs of the coming fall to ignore. She lifted her face to the sun and savored its warmth.
“Fall is coming,” said Iain.
“I was just thinking the same. The only thing I do not like about that is that fall is followed by winter.” Emily smiled at him. “I suspect that does not trouble you hardy Scots as it does me.”
“Nay too fond of the cold, actually. That is why we put in so many fireplaces.”
“I did not think there were that many.”
“Nay, ye probably grew up with one in every room. It is a lot for a shepherd’s house.” He smiled when she laughed. “Took a large bite of the money we had brought with us plus three beds made by Matthew and two rugs woven by Robbie. Mabel has one of those fancy iron stoves in her shop and we have been working on a trade for it with her. A little trade and a little money.”
“That must be fun.” Emily laughed. “I bet she drives a hard bargain.”
“Ye have no idea, but we are close.”
When they reached the spot on the trail, Iain secured their horses and helped her down a short path to a flat grassy area at the side of the gorge. The sound of the water was soothing and the water glistened in the sun. He spread out a blanket and set the basket down before he sat. Then he patted the spot on the blanket right by his side. Emily grinned, shook her head over his antics and sat down.
“I did not see this spot when I rode by,” she said. “I thought there was nothing but rocky cliff.”
“Hard to see unless ye go right up to the edge and even then ye can be distracted by the water. So, let us see what Mrs. O’Neal put together for us.”
They spent a pleasant hour eating Mrs. O’Neal’s fried chicken, a crunchy salad, and fresh bread and butter. There was some apple pie and she had even put in a jar of fresh cream to top it with. Emily groaned when she finished her pie and fell back on the blanket, her hands covering her stomach.
“I ate too much. You will have to haul me home in a cart,” she said.
Iain smiled a little as he put the things back into the basket. He wondered if she even realized she had called his house home. It had been said so easily, so unconsciously, he knew she felt it and that suited him just fine. Finished with packing the basket he set it aside and lay down beside her, turning on his side so that he could look at her.
“Want some wine?” he asked.
“You have wine?”
“We arenae totally uncivilized out here. Actually, Duncan makes it. It isnae the kind ye are probably used to but it serves.”
“I did not see any grapes around.”
“There are some wild ones he uses now and then but he uses whatever is at hand. I think the bottle he gave me was blackberry.”
“Huh. Never had that. My aunt Catherine used to make wine. Some of them were nice. Some, well, not so much. I liked her elderberry wine.” She sat up and he handed her a glass then watched as she took a sip. “Different but tasty.”
“Aye. A wee bit sweeter than I like but he does it weel.” He took a sip. “Hmmm. Not as sweet as last year’s batch. Better. Stronger, too, I think. I begin to believe we may be planting some grapes if he keeps up.”
Emily laughed. “You are a very gifted family. Furniture, weaving, painting, wine making. There are three brothers left. Do they have a skill as well?”
“Weel, Matthew can talk to horses, calm the most jittery of the beasts. Funny, but I wouldnae have thought horses in this country would respond to the Gaelic, but they do.”
“That is odd, but still a gift. Gaelic, really?”
“Aye, Gaelic. Occasionally sings an old song.” He grinned when she laughed softly.
“Still leaves two brothers,” she said, and smiled at him.
“They havenae found anything yet.” He leaned forward and brushed his lips over hers. “I have something for ye. I have been holding it for a while, giving ye time to, weel, grieve.”
Emily blinked then quickly drained her glass of wine. She guessed he had something that had been David’s or Annabel’s. While she felt she was over the worst of her grieving, she did not think she was ready to see some personal item of the people she had lost. She had dealt with her grief mostly by not thinking of their deaths. Then she took a deep breath and let it out slowly, grabbing hold of a thread of calm and sanity. The question to answer was when would she be ready and there was no certain answer. Better to brace herself now and get it over with.
“Emily?” He reached out and ran his hand up and down her arm.
“I just needed a moment.” She looked at her empty glass and set it down. “And something to brace myself with. So, what do you have?”
Iain studied Emily for a moment. He could see that she did not want to see what he had, did not want her memories stirred up again, but she would do it. He wished there was some good time, a more appropriate time, to give her the things he had taken from the dead, but doubted there would ever be one. He pulled the small wrapped package from a pocket in his pants and held it for a moment as he studied her. Unable to decide what her expression meant, he sighed and gave it to her.
Emily’s hands trembled faintly as she opened the small package and spread it out on her lap. She reached for Annabel’s locket first, opened it, and felt a sharp pain in her heart as she stared at the small pictures. She could recall when Annabel got it, the day they got the pictures, and even when Annabel had put them in the locket. She had spoken of keeping her boys next to her heart as she had tucked it inside the neck of her gown.
Putting the locket down, she picked up the rings. They shone as if freshly cleaned. Inside each one was part of a maudlin saying about united hearts. Annabel had spent far too much of their money for the things when they were in New York getting Neddy’s birth certificate verified by every member of the gentry they could find and she had said they needed them to let everyone see they were married. David had been angry at first but too much in love to stay angry. Emily absently brushed aside the tear that rolled down her cheek.
“Why?” she managed to ask, her gaze fixed on the portrait of Annabel holding Neddy and taken at a time when her sister had bubbled up with happiness.
“I thought ye would want something to remember them by. And the rings?” He shrugged. “They seemed like the sort of thing a parent might pass on to his child.”
“Thank you.”
“I didnae want to make ye cry.”
She smiled, leaned toward him, and brushed a kiss over his mouth. “You did not. It was seeing her when she was at her happiest. Then the rings, they reminded me of all she could not forget.”
“What do ye mean?”
“They cost far too much, and we did not have all that much anyway. Yet she never thought on that; it never occurred to her. She just took the money for them and was hurt because David was angry about that. I had to sell a few pieces of my jewelry to replace the money she took and that also bothered David. Annabel did not know how to change who she was.” She managed a little smile. “But you are right, when the time comes Neddy will appreciate them.”
“That is sad.” He watched her rewrap the locket and rings and tuck them into a pocket in her skirt. “Do ye think her husband kenned it, saw that she didnae want to change?”
Emily opened her mouth to say that David had loved Annabel. He had but that was not the right answer. A memory came flooding in and she realized he had understood his wife could not change, did not even want to try, and still loved her. She had been weeding the garden and David had been stocking the woodpile. Annabel had been sitting in a chair in the shade, fanning herself. At one point Emily had looked up to find him staring at her, his eyes sad. He had then smiled sadly and said that she was a good girl, that she knew what was important, and had the strength to accept change.
She felt Iain’s hand stroke her hair and knew she had just spoken out loud. She had not intended to, did not like to voice any criticisms of her dead sister, but also found she did not really mind when it was Iain. Emily did not resist when he pulled her into his arms. She slid her arms around his waist and laid her cheek against his chest.
“How old was your sister?” he asked.
“Eight and twenty when she died, so four and twenty when she married David. She was six years older than me. David had just turned thirty. Too young to die. They were both far too young to die and definitely did not deserve being murdered.”
Iain was doing some quick subtraction in his head. “Ye are only two and twenty?”
“Yes.” She frowned up at him, wondering why he interrupted her serious thoughts on her loss with questions about her age. “What does that matter? Actually, I will not be two and twenty for a few months yet. I am only one and twenty until the end of November.”
“I thought ye were older.” He grimaced for he suspected that was not what a woman wanted to hear.
She laughed a little. “And how does that matter?”
“It doesnae. It was just a surprise.”
“How old are you then?”
“Eight and twenty. My birth date is the first of November.” He told himself to shut up because he sounded like an idiot worrying over things that did not matter.
Emily kissed the hollow at the bottom of his throat. “So old. I might need to rethink this liaison.” She nearly screeched with laughter when he suddenly pushed her down onto the blanket and tickled her mercilessly.
Iain’s intentions quickly shifted from playful to amorous and he kissed her. He turned them onto their sides so he could more easily undo her gown. When he tugged it down, he had to pull her arms out of the sleeves and he sensed a growing tension in her body.
Kissing the swells of her breasts over the top of her shift, he murmured, “It is all right, Emily. No one will see us.”
“They only have to look down,” she protested.
“The only ones who use this trail are my kin and the Powell brothers and they all know the horses tied up there means do not look down.”
“You have brought another woman here.”
The hint of an accusation in her tone made him grin. “Not me. But there are few places around here to be private.”
Emily was not sure whether to believe that or not. Then he pulled her shift down and began to kiss her breast, stealing away all thought of a need for privacy and a possibility of other women in his life. Nothing else mattered but how he could make her feel.
He sat up to take off his shirt and she waited tense with anticipation. She loved how it felt when their skin touched. Nakedness was vital to lovemaking, she decided. All that skin touching was almost as stirring as one of his kisses. She welcomed him back into her arms when he returned and met his kiss with an equal ferocity.
When he had to reach beneath her skirts to shed her drawers she had the passing thought that at least they would not be fully naked in the broad daylight. Then his hand slipped between her thighs to torment her and she arched into his touch. Surprise peeked from beneath her passion when he used his clever fingers to bring her to release.
The force of that release was just easing when he joined their bodies. Emily clung to him and he moved lazily almost to bring her passion back to a peak. Muttering his name she tightened her grip to urge him on to a greater ferocity when she hit and then went over another peak. She was still gasping from the strength of it when he joined her, groaning her name into her hair as he held her close.
Iain finally rolled over onto his back to fix his pants and glanced over at Emily. She lay on her back, her clothes in disarray and her arms flung out to the sides. She looked well pleasured, he thought, but suspected she would not appreciate him telling her so. He would love to compliment her on how beautifully responsive she was but also thought that might not be a thing a lady would consider a compliment. She did look tempting lying there with her breasts bared to the sun, but he smothered his growing interest, bent closer, and brushed a kiss over each breast.
“Ye do look fine basking in the sun like that,” he said quietly, and almost laughed at the speed with which she opened her eyes, glanced down at herself, and then began to yank her clothing back up.
“Rather like a fresh-caught fish . . .” he began, then laughed out loud at the outraged look she gave him and held her back when she would have clapped a hand over his mouth.
“Such a funny man,” she muttered even though his laugh urged her strongly to join in.
“Back to real life.”
“I know. Not that real life around here is such a travail.” Using her fingers as a comb she put her hair back in order.
“There are days it can seem so.”
“Even on those days, it is not so bad. Of course, I have nothing to do with the raising of the pigs. I gladly leave all that to Mrs. O’Neal and her children. I am not fond of pigs.”
“Ye dinnae see any of us mucking about with them, either, though they do provide us with a fine meal now and then.”
She grinned. “I know. I just wish Mrs. O’Neal would not tell us the name of the pig the meal came from.”
“Aye,” he agreed, and chuckled. “I just cannae figure out if she does it because she is pleased about what the poor pig produced for us or if she is trying to put us off eating any because she doesnae like to kill them.”
“I did ask her once, commenting on how she names them all and appears fond of them. She said she is but she is also raising them to feed people, that that is their purpose in life, and that the life she gives them is a ‘demmed good one’ so she doesnae feel badly when she ends it.”
“Very practical, our Mrs. O’Neal.” He stood up and then pulled her to her feet. Emily held firmly to his hand as he went back up to their horses. It was a pleasant place and she had enjoyed herself, in ways she would never tell anyone, but she was not sure she would like to picnic on what was no more than a cliff too often.
When they reached the house and dismounted, Emily saw Mrs. O’Neal standing with one of her larger pigs. She suspected that was one of her problems with the animals, they could grow so huge. Walking over to Mrs. O’Neal, she put herself on the opposite side of the woman from the pig that was noisily enjoying a bucketful of scraps from the table.
“Has he finished living his good life?” Emily asked.
“Humphrey here is close,” said Mrs. O’Neal. “Just trying to decide if he is for a regular meal or should be saved for a holiday. I am thinking he would best serve for one of the winter holidays. Handsome fellow as he is, he deserves to be something special.”
Emily looked at the pig and figured only a pig lover could see something beautiful in the animal. “I suspect he won’t find it all that special.”
Mrs. O’Neal laughed and Emily started toward the house, leaving Iain there to discuss Humphrey’s fate. There were certain aspects of farm life that took some getting used to, she decided. The manor house had had farms but she had only ever seen them in a picturesque setting, the less pleasant side of farming kept out of her view. She was heartily glad she was not the one who had to make the decisions about which animal would grace the table tonight and she fully intended to keep it that way.
Iain finally left Mrs. O’Neal having her last days with Humphrey and went looking for Emily. He was not fond of picking the animals to use for the table but was accustomed to it, but she was not. Although she had not looked sickened or truly upset, he could read the unease on her face.
As he started up the stairs he realized he had completely used up his newly found strength. It had, perhaps, been a little early to use his picnic idea but he did not regret it. Iain knew Emily and Mrs. O’Neal would harangue him about it though. He was about to go into his room when Emily came up beside him and put an arm around his waist. It was only then he realized he was swaying a little.
“Too soon,” he said as she helped him to the bed.
“I suspect you will recover quickly though.” After settling him on the bed she stood up and grinned at him. “I was just thinking of going to the kitchen and getting myself some cold tea and a nice small piece of pie.”
“Ye just had pie.”
“A small piece. Adding another will not hurt. Mrs. O’Neal has all the boys off picking berries with her and thought I would enjoy the quiet.”
“So will I.” He started to sit up and she pushed him back down with one small hand against his chest. “I am not feeling so poorly I cannae go sit in the kitchen to eat pie.”
“No, most likely not, but rest for a few more minutes then come on down and if you feel the least bit unsteady on your feet, ring the bell, and I will come up to give you extra support.” When he just frowned, she said, “Promise me.”
“Fine. If a short rest doesnae cure me, I will ring for your aid.”
She kissed him and, laughing, skipped out of the room. Iain shook his head. It was humiliating to find out he was still prone to moments of weakness but he should have realized something like that could bother him for a while. He would give himself a short rest period and then go down to the kitchen for pie and Emily.