The Laird's Lady

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His heart ached with longing for the domestic pleasures a woman could gift a family with. Rosalind’s slippered feet tread on sweet-smelling rushes, her cutting knife moving deftly from one stem to the next. He could not see the whole of her face from the side, but he could tell she bit her lip as she worked, seemingly caught in thought.

She trimmed the stem from a long rose before plunging it into a hammered silver urn, then looked up. If he’d surprised her, she hid it well.

“Good evening, heathen.” She smiled charmingly before returning to her work.

She wished to pretend his arrival was of no consequence to her? Point one for the lady. She’d managed to rile him already.

“Ye’ve stuffed yer rooms full of greenery with nae a holy day in sight.” For that matter, even on holy days, he’d never seen a chamber so lavishly appointed with nature’s bounty. “What are ye up to?”

“Because you have seen fit to lock me indoors, I have brought the outdoors inside where I can enjoy them.”

“Where did ye find all these?” Malcolm asked, wandering around the room to study the blooms. There were at least a dozen shades and shapes of wildflowers and roses.

“My mother’s garden.”

“I have seen no blooming garden. Ouch.” He sucked a drop of blood from his finger. “Yer foliage is dangerous.”

“I must choose my opportunities to inflict a small measure of pain upon you where I can.” The wench grinned unabashedly. “The garden is surrounded by one of the crumbling walls of the south tower.”

“We will begin rebuilding the walls on the southern side tomorrow.” He joined her at the plank table where she worked.

“So I have heard. That is why I have chosen to pick as many flowers as I could before your men trample my plants.”

“How do ye know our plans?” Malcolm plucked the small shears from her hand, preferring to leave the unpredictable maiden unarmed. “And who picked all of these?” He knew very well she had not left her chambers all week. Her door remained guarded.

“I told you at your last visit, McNair, there is much you do not know about the keep.” Arching a brow, she peered at him over a vase of spotted yellow lilies. Lilies? Hell, they could have been some kind of fancy herb and he wouldn’t know the difference. “I picked these myself and I heard your men talking about their plans to fortify the southern walls.”

“Ye lie,” Malcolm told her, employing Ian’s tactic.

She merely smiled.

He tossed up his hands in disgust, lacking his brother’s patience. “I refuse to get trapped in a discussion of petty nonsense. Ye will sit and talk to me reasonably.” He seated himself on a stone bench and gestured to the chair beside him.

Rosalind did not move. “As you can see, I still have a great deal of work to be done, so if you do not mind—”

“I do mind.” She thought she had work to do? He had a field bursting with grain and no clue how to secure it for the winter. He wouldn’t take any chances with the harvest lest the people of Beaumont starve, proving once and for all he did not deserve a keep of his own. “Come and sit down.”

Sighing, Rosalind laid her plants back in their basket. She paused at the sideboard before joining him. “I seem to recall you have need of spirits when we talk. May I pour you some wine?”

“How pleasing ye can be when ye choose.” He wondered what it would be like to lead the kind of domestic life in which a woman brought him wine at the end of the day. A damn sight nicer than consigning himself to some bedroll on the cold ground on a battlefield. Especially if the shared cup of wine led to even more relaxing pursuits. “I can think of nothing I would like better.”

He watched her take her time filling the cups and seating herself. She looked radiant despite having been locked in the dungeon, then confined to her rooms all week. Perhaps she really had strolled out in the walled garden today. It would explain why she looked so fetching.

Malcolm shook his head to clear it of wayward thoughts. More than likely the scent of all the damn flowers had gone to his head.

He sipped his wine, in no hurry to talk just yet. Rosalind drank hers slowly, too, he noted. Probably plotting her strategy to keep him off balance. He allowed himself a moment to absorb the sight of her, hoping maybe if he studied her more carefully he would discover the secret of her attraction and, in turn, find a way to better arm himself against her appeal.

Her kirtle and surcoat were two shades of purple—the kirtle a pale lavender, the surcoat a rich plum. The sleeves and bodice fit closely, revealing a softly curving, altogether pleasing form beneath. And he thought this closer investigation of her would somehow help?

Shifting in his seat, he gulped the rest of his wine in an attempt to cool the fire within. Forcing his gaze to safer terrain, he noted the brightly colored gems glittering about her wrist, and a cluster of amethysts shining at her waist identified the hilt of a dagger. He winced at the memory of that particular blade and wondered why he had not taken it from her earlier.

Flaxen hair still hung loose about her shoulders, brushed to a fine glimmer that caught the candlelight as she moved. One thin braid, wound with silver thread, dangled amid the tresses falling to her waist.

She glanced up suddenly and turned brilliant eyes upon him, perhaps waiting for him to speak. Why had he never noticed the color of her eyes before? They were exactly the shade of heather, the small flower that grew rampant throughout the Highlands.

“I have much work to do yet tonight.” If she meant to prod him out the door with her words, she would be disappointed. He had no intention of leaving here without the information he sought.

But first, he would unsettle her. Rattle her just a little. Perhaps then she’d be all too glad to give him the answers he wanted so she could send him on his way.

“So ye have said, lass.” Setting his empty cup aside, he edged closer to her. Not obnoxiously close. Just near enough to catch a hint of her soft scent. “I was wracking my brain, I was, to name the color of those eyes.”

A flush crept into her cheeks, although she did not seem quite worldly enough to fear the carnal direction of his thoughts. She shook her head and made no reply, her face the picture of innocent confusion.

“Rest easy, darlin’, I have solved the problem, for ye have eyes the color of heather.”

“Heather?” She wrinkled her nose. “Truly you know naught of flowers, McNair. The blooms you speak of are a generous shade of purple, while my eyes are distinctly gray.”

“Heather.” He’d never been the kind of man to wax poetic about a lass’s beauty before, but then waging war didn’t require as much tactical planning as catching Rosalind Beaumont off guard. He needed to press any advantage he could, and strangely enough, it proved all too easy to flatter the bold, brave lady of the keep. “But dinna fash, lass, I have come here for yer expertise on another matter.”

Predictably, she appeared relieved, her shoulders relaxing by slow degrees as some of the hectic color faded from her cheeks.

If he were not a man of honor, it would be all too tempting to seduce prickly Rosalind. But that was not his objective. “The fields will be ready for harvest next week.”

“A fine harvest it will be,” she observed, sipping her wine with more caution than he had. “The weather has smiled favorably upon our crops for once.”

“On yer flowers, too, ’twould seem.”

“I have been fortunate that Mother Nature saw fit to cooperate with me this year.” She twirled her cup between restless fingers, her gaze settling upon anything in the chamber but him. “Two years ago it rained so heavily all summer, I feared the roots would rot right out from under the stems. But the plants are hardy, no matter how delicate they might look.”

“The same might be said for their mistress.” Malcolm did not miss the pleasure in her eyes as she spoke of her garden. He struggled to recall she was his enemy and not a tempting maid, because no matter how fair she looked among her flowers, Rosalind was as determined and ruthlessly practical as his faithless Isabel had been. Any wench who fought off her enemy with a crossbow was bound to be trouble.

“There is naught delicate left within me, I fear.” Her unexpected remark seemed to be spoken to herself more than him before she downed the rest of her wine in a hearty swig. “Life in the borderlands has a way of stomping out the softness inside us, doesn’t it?”

Ah, hell. He could not be taken in by the blatant hurt he spied in her gaze. To soften toward her now would be a fool’s folly.

“I want to make a deal with ye.” He rose from the bench to slowly pace the solar floor. Sitting close to her seemed to distract him far more than it rattled her. “But first, ye must tell me what ye know of bringing in a harvest.”

Rosalind plucked one of the roses from the basket at her feet and inhaled its fragrance. “If I told you, I would have nothing left to bargain with.”

As if his hands had a will of their own, Malcolm found himself drawing her from her seat to hold her in front of him. Unwise, he knew. Yet he could not resist the urge to touch her again, to find out for himself if she was as soft as he remembered.

“If ye dinna tell me something to demonstrate yer knowledge of the subject, I willna believe ye are capable of this task.”

She stared at him in breathless silence, but did not pull away. Her eyes widened and grew dark in surprise. Malcolm flexed his fingers around her upper arms, gently pressing the soft flesh beneath the delicate linen of her kirtle. When had he last held a woman?

He could see her pulse throb in a slender blue vein at her neck. He fancied he could feel her heart pound right through his fingers. The scent of roses seemed to radiate from her.