She was guileless, though. He always forgot just how guileless she was. He still couldn’t fathom that there were people in the world decent enough to be motivated by cares for folk other than themselves. But she was such a person, and that innocence had lured him in, ever closer, until he’d lain over her, wondering at the brief flickers of lightness and happiness he’d begun to feel in his heart when she was near.
God save him, but she’d seemed to want him. She’d been a dream beneath him, responding to his every word, his every touch, as though a woman starved.
He’d never met her like. He’d never touched a creature so fine, so delicate, unsullied by guile, greed, or any of the cheap tools of seduction with which he was familiar. No fans, or perfumes, or coy laughter for Elspeth. She was all that was right and true and good.
And he’d wanted to ravish her.
Until they’d heard a noise, and she’d stiffened beneath him, and he was reminded who he was: coarse and uncivilized, a dangerous man on dangerous business, with no right to endanger an innocent like her.
He’d perched near the edge of Dunnottar Rock, hundreds of feet above the roiling water. His hired man came into view, and though the man was far from the ledge, he shuffled toward Aidan, looking terrified he might somehow slip and tumble to his death.
Naturally, Gregor had to appear too, close on his heels. “Is everything all right here?”
Aidan knew his oldest brother couldn’t resist throwing himself into the fray. The man had probably been lurking outside the guardhouse, waiting for Aidan to misstep. So much for familial trust. “Just because I got kidnapped once doesn’t mean I can’t take care of myself.”
Gregor put his hands up in surrender. “No need to take umbrage. Simply trying to do the brotherly thing.”
“Then go brother one of our other siblings.”
Most men would bristle, but Gregor only laughed. “As you will, Aid.”
He watched his brother head back the way he came, thinking it was time to remember himself. The farm he toiled on wasn’t his own. The woman he toiled with not his wife. He needed to stop acting the morose and heartsick fool and get back to the business at hand. Revenge.
He turned to his hired hand. “You’d best have the names.”
The man held a rumpled sheet of paper, and Aidan snatched it and began to read.
Dougal Fraser, Knitted Goodes
Aberdeen Burgess of Guild
sacke wool: 11
wool in cloth: 7
There was a signature and wax seal at the bottom of the page, with the words Weighted and Approved, Dean and Assessors of Guild.
It appeared to be a trade receipt, and though Aidan couldn’t make sense of every single word, he managed most of it. He found himself once more pushing thoughts of Elspeth from his mind. That he could read anything at all was thanks to her skill and patience.
“What’s this to me?” he asked, his voice gruff. “This isn’t the man I asked you to find. This is some merchant.”
“Aye,” the man replied nervously, “but a merchant, I’m told, who sends his goods away on some verra peculiar ships.”
There was a rustling in the bushes behind the man. He didn’t notice it, but Aidan did and sighed. If he peered hard enough, he imagined he’d be able to make out a head of blond hair among the leaves. He folded the paper and shoved it into his sporran. “You can go.”
“But you says if I bring back a name …” The man looked encouragingly at the sporran.
“So I did.” Aidan plucked out half a crown and tossed it to him. “The name best have some merit, or I’ll find you and take my coin back with interest.”
The man nodded with gusto, and with an anxious survey of the rocks around him, he began to edge away.
“Ho,” Aidan said, stopping him. “I’ll throw in a tanner next time, if you can manage to get your daft head in and out of here without raising such a ruckus.”
Once his hired man was out of sight, he said, “You can come out now.” He waited in silence, then added, “I know you’re there, so don’t think to hide from me.”
Elspeth’s head popped up over a low rise.
“And so you should look abashed.” He crossed his arms and tried to look stern, but it was difficult in the face of her endearing blush. “My business is just that, luvvie. Mine.”
She clambered over the rocks she’d hidden behind. “Who was that man?” she asked, ignoring his order.
He reached up to hand her down to his side. “I hear something in that pretty voice of yours, and I don’t like it. This isn’t some countrified dance carouse I’m planning. It’s business I’m about here. Business that has naught to do with you.”
“But I can help.” Her eyes went to his sporran. “I want to help.”
He knew it was just his paper she was after, but when he felt her gaze rake the area of his groin, it was hard to keep his thoughts from wandering to a decidedly baser place. He settled the sporran low on his hips. “You can help by keeping your nose safely out of it.”
“But I can help you decipher it.”
He shook his head. The girl had more backbone than folk gave her credit for. “Your job is to help me decipher books, and your wee poems, and those hero tales you’ve such a fancy for.”
“Please, Aidan,” she begged sweetly. The wind gusted, whipping a bit of hair loose from her braid, and she tucked the fine, pale strands behind her ear. The movement pulled her bodice tight, its threadbare fabric molding to her modest curves.
She glanced again to a place between his legs. This focus of hers unsettled him. It’d been months since he’d had a woman. As for having a sweet innocent like Elspeth, that had happened only in his dreams. Add to that the fact that he’d not fully recovered from the sight of her sprawled on his bed, or the feel of her beneath him, and the cursed sporran had begun to chafe on his hardening cock.
She pointed to his groin. “Just let me relieve you of that.”
“Mary and Joseph,” he muttered. He loped ahead to adjust himself surreptitiously, leading them on a path away from Dunnottar. “Damned fiendish woman. You have no idea.”
“I could have an idea,” she said, completely misunderstanding. She jogged to catch up to him, slipping along the slick terrain.
He steadied her with a hand to her elbow. “Mind the mud, Beth. This bloody home of ours seems rarely to dry.”
Though she nodded acknowledgment, her argument didn’t pause a beat. “If you’d but hear me out.”
“You spoke, I heard you, and now our wee chat is over.” Aidan strode ahead once more, unsure how he’d found himself in this conversation. He’d never consider involving Elspeth. He was tracking the man who’d kidnapped him, for God’s sake. It was far too dangerous. “You’ve had a peek at my papers, and it stops there.”
“But I have a canny head for business,” she protested.
“There is one thing I know on this earth, Beth, and it’s that I’ll not allow you to entangle yourself in this particular business.”
“But I am very capable. I’m very clever with numbers and tallies, and I can help—”
“Help?” He spun to face her. She’d been at his heels, and he had to grab her by the shoulders to stop her from running into him. “You can barely take care of yourself, how do you propose to help me?”
“What?” The color on her cheeks was high, and her eyes were bright with defiance. “Can’t take care of myself? What can you possibly mean? I run the farm!”
Aidan forced himself to keep his thoughts on track, but it was difficult. He’d sensed Elspeth’s spirit, but to see it now so unfettered, to hear her words so uninhibited, made him want to grab her, pull her close, and see what other surprises she’d kept hidden.
Measuring his breath, he gathered his thoughts. “Yes,” he said calmly, “you run the farm, but you don’t have a care for yourself.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but raising a hand, he cut her off. He’d thought long and hard about this particular topic, and he could tick off any number of examples. “Spectacles, for a start. You have trouble reading at night—don’t tell me you don’t—and you could use a pair of spectacles.”
“Well, I just have our priorities in order. I put my family first.”
“Family?” The word stung. Aidan was so alienated from the other MacAlpins, barely did he feel like he had any family at all. Someday this lovely woman would pledge herself to another, become some other man’s family. “Don’t speak to me of your family when your father ambles about as he pleases, in and out, leaving you to do work meant for him.”
“He’s an old man.”
“Whom you spoil as though he were a child. Do you have him hide away his pipe? No. The man can smoke all he likes. He can have all the bread he likes, and all the meat he can eat, and all the ale he can drink. But you?”
“Don’t be such a mule, Aidan. I eat, I drink. I take care of myself.”
She was riled now. Forgetting her shyness, the woman she was in her heart blazed through like a glorious beacon. And damn his soul, all he could think was that she needed a thorough ravishing.
“A mule, am I?” The notion brought a wide grin to his face. But it faded quickly. Never could he take her. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—sully her.
Elspeth deserved some farmer, with a safely predictable life. Not that her father would ever let her go. He doubted the man would be able—or willing—to fend for himself. She’d spend her days caring for her father, then, upon his death, she’d marry herself and her land to someone like their neighbor Angus.
A hot brew of envy, anger, and frustration coursed through his veins. He could see himself as her farmer husband. He could envision himself as the man sharing her life, protecting her, buying her wee comforts. “A fine thing, this caretaking of yours. Your father has his wee luxuries, while you, Beth, you don’t seem to have anything.”