Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

C ol rose early to take the dogs for their morning ramble, feeling more refreshed than he had in a long time. He returned to the house intent on writing to the British government to enquire about the embassy to China. It was his fault she was stranded here, and his conscience demanded that if it was within his power to ensure she could get home, he must do all he could to make that happen.

After breakfast, he saddled his horse for a long overdue visit to his tenants. He’d received several requests for assistance with repairs and damage from recent floods, and he visited each to authorise payments for repairs, settle a dispute between neighbours over a lost pig and a goat, and even to help with the repair of a roof. By the end of the day, he was tired but content and looking forward to returning home.

The emotions were both familiar and foreign. This was the way he used to feel when he had Cat to come home to. Since her death, his life had become grey and bleak, devoid of joy. Even the simple pleasure of a good day’s physical labour helping a grateful tenant had eluded him. Everything had felt like a chore. Could last night have made such a difference to my previously bleak existence? Seemingly it had .

Riding home in the mellow light of late afternoon, he gave some serious thought to whether he should allow a repeat of last night’s activities. His cock stirred in his breeches as he recalled the details, a bit of a blur at the time, yet visceral moments came back to him in heated clarity.

Losing himself in the delight of kissing her. The shock of her hand on his cock and the equally shockingly delicious feeling of being encased in tight, wet heat as she engulfed his cock with her entrance and forced her body down over his. He caught his breath with the memory, uttering a low moan. His horse’s ears twitched, and he patted the animal absently in reassurance.

Her boldness had both shocked and delighted him. And he recalled now her statement about using a sponge, which showed that she had planned the whole thing. She’d meant to seduce him and had succeeded. He had not resisted. It would have been beyond him to do so.

She was an experienced woman who knew what she wanted and grabbed it with both hands. The contrast with women of his own culture, so protected and hedged about with strictures and prohibitions, admittedly for their own protection, was stark indeed.

Recalling her bold, unabashed passion made him hard as iron. She had wanted him, quite desperately, it seemed. She had been so wet when he touched her, and she came so easily, freely indulging her passion, taking what she wanted, not waiting for him to orchestrate it.

Any uncertainty he might have felt about engaging in intercourse with a woman after so long an abstinence, was swept away on the tide of her passion. He’d not had time for nerves or uncertainty. She whipped him up into a passionate frenzy of need, before he could even think.

He couldn’t pretend he didn’t want to do it again, in a bed, without clothes to get in the way, but whether they should was another question. If she were to return to her home, was it fair to either of them to indulge a passion that might make parting difficult? Could he maintain sufficient detachment to protect himself from the hurt of loss all over again?

Because he didn’t think he could bear that again. Cat had snatched his heart from his chest on first sight and taken it, he’d thought, to her grave. But the organ seemed to be learning to function again in spite of that. He was unsure what that meant. If he came to care for Aihan, could he bear to give her up?

He had no immediate answers to any of this, but concluded that the more prudent course of action was to avoid any more intimacy. But he was ruefully aware that his body did not agree. He wanted her again, fiercely. If she tried to seduce him tonight, was he strong enough to resist?

The counter-argument, his body proposed, was that it was good for him. He felt marvellous. Where was the sense in denying himself something that felt so damned good and did no one any harm? If she continued to use protection there was no risk of getting her with child, a nightmare he couldn’t face. She emphatically was not making him responsible for her feelings, and that was a priceless breath of maturity. He had enough trouble being responsible for his own. If she wanted him, and she had made it clear that she did, was it futile, even selfish, to resist something he also wanted?

But perhaps he was getting ahead of himself. Perhaps having got what she wanted last night, she wouldn’t want a repeat? She had left him to go to her bed alone. That surprised him. He had thought perhaps they would retire together. And this morning over breakfast she had behaved quite normally, nothing particularly flirtatious in her manner and nothing awkward either. Perhaps she had scratched her itch and didn’t need him anymore? The notion was somewhat deflating.

His conclusion, reached as he dismounted his horse and unbuckled and removed the saddle, was that he would wait and see what she did and act accordingly.

Aihan had missed him. Learning from Fergus that Mac had gone to visit his tenants for the day, she had tried not to mind that he hadn’t told her himself that he wasn’t going to be home for luncheon. As it was, she didn’t find out until the meal was served and his place at the table remained empty.

Surprisingly, with their father away, the boys were on their best behaviour. But perhaps that had something to do with the lesson she had taught that morning. With the mattress available, she had taught them a couple of throws. She chose Rory to demonstrate on, and the lad was stunned to find himself on his back repeatedly, no matter what he did to try to evade or anticipate her actions.

He paid very close attention to her instructions on how to perform the manoeuvre and was gleefully delighted when it worked. Tomorrow, she would teach them the move to avoid it.

She smiled over the luncheon table, watching the boys chattering among themselves, and caught Fergus’s eye as the old man winked at her.

Having discovered Mac’s absence, she decided to take advantage of it and visit the village in the afternoon. Now that her English was improving, she thought she might be able to glean some information about her brother’s whereabouts. She was still convinced Mac had not told her all he knew. And she had utterly failed to question him last night, caught up instead in the physical passion that sparked between them.

She had surprised herself by how much she wanted him. Planning to seduce him to get information from him, she realised with hindsight, was a ruse for what she had really wanted, which was him. She’d had several lovers over the years, nothing long term, nothing that meant anything after the first when, as a young and na?ve eighteen-year-old, she had fancied herself in love.

Lesson learned, she had eschewed the notion of love and avoided all her brother’s attempts to arrange an advantageous marriage for her. He loved her too well to force her into something she didn’t want, and let her have her way. But he emphatically didn’t know about her lovers. He would have killed them if he knew.

The attraction between herself and Mac was so strong she couldn’t resist it and saw no reason why she should. She wasn’t planning on staying here indefinitely, and a bit of pleasure was a good balm to her sorrow over her exile and her worries about Liang. And the man needed it. She could see that very clearly. His grief over the loss of his wife was a palpable thing.

Besides, he had saved her life. Even if he had unknowingly trapped her here in his country. Her initial anger with him over that had burned itself out, replaced by something she wasn’t sure how to define. Compassion, perhaps? Liking? She did like him; it was impossible not to when he had been so kind to her, nursing her when she was ill. She would be churlish indeed to spurn him in the face of that.

And the truth was she didn’t want to keep him at arm’s length. Last night had been superbly satisfying. It had been well over a year since she last took a lover. Closer to two, she thought. Her appetite for it had been strong last night; her practice of self-pleasuring wasn’t sufficient to satisfy the craving she had developed for Mac in such a short space of time. The man was a mountain of masculinity who had got under her skin and into her blood. His shocking red hair and intense blue eyes, and his sheer size was an unexpected aphrodisiac. And that had translated into intimate size too! His cock was huge. She giggled, recalling the stretch and satisfying fullness of him inside her as she rode him hard to completion.

A rush of wet heat between her legs as sense memory engulfed her made her breath catch and her flesh pulse. When he pushed her down onto the wood smoke–smelling carpet and took her hard and fast, that had been even more satisfying. She bit her lip and uttered a small whimper of longing. Really, she wanted to experience that again, and soon. Tonight could not come quickly enough.

Surely, he would want a reprise? What healthy male would say no to a repeat of something that was so blatantly pleasurable for them both? But Mac, for all his bluster and boldness, was a sensitive man, encased in a large, strong body. His devotion to his dead wife was testament to that.

Did he regret last night? His demeanour over breakfast had given nothing away. He was his usual polite self, but did not speak to her intimately as he might have done, nor give her glances or accidental touches that spoke of a wordless understanding between them. Perhaps, for him their lovemaking wasn’t something spectacular, but only routine? Yet she would swear he’d not been with a woman in a long time, based on his physical reaction to her. She, for her part, tried to act as if it hadn’t happened. The boys and Fergus didn’t need to know what they had been doing on the floor of Mac’s study!

She sighed, partly from longing and partly out of contentment. She would see if she could gauge his appetite for a reprise after dinner.

Her excuse for visiting the village was shopping. Fergus gave her some money to buy supplies, and she took a satchel to carry the goods in. He also explained that she could order more bulk goods to be delivered by the local store. Eggs, flour, that sort of thing.

Dressed more or less like the other local women, she felt less conspicuous, and even though she could not disguise her Chinese features, she felt more confident going into the shop in her gown, cloak, and bonnet. She just hoped she would be able to make herself understood sufficiently to accomplish the task of ordering supplies.

She had thought of taking Willy with her. The lad didn’t speak much English, but he understood enough of it to be able to translate things into the Gaelic. She was picking up the odd word and expression of that language too. Being surrounded by a language, it was surprisingly easy to pick up meaning, and her vocabulary was increasing by leaps and bounds, building on the foundations Liang had given her on the long ship voyage. And as her ear adjusted to the local accent, she adjusted her own pronunciation so that she could be understood.

But she didn’t want word of her asking about Liang to get back to Mac, so she had decided to dispense with Willy’s escort. If Mac was keeping information from her about Liang, he must have a reason. She needed to know firstly what he hadn’t told her, and then to figure out why.

She found the general store in the main street with the help of Fergus’s rough map. It was a large double-fronted, double-story, stone-built building with mullioned glass windows that distorted the view into the store.

She opened the door to a tinkle of a bell announcing her entrance. Letting the door close quietly behind her, she looked around. The store had a floury, yeasty, musky, and spicy smell, like a mix of grain and spices. Shelves lined the walls and took up most of the space in the store. A counter at the back cut customers off from the rear half of the store, which was visible through a gap in the curtains of an alcove behind. The rear part was given over to bulk storage, from what she could see.

Behind the counter were a myriad of jars and bottles with mysterious contents of various colours. A couple of customers browsed the shop, and a tall dark-haired man with dark stubble on his jaw packed shelves to her left. A short, buxom woman stood behind the counter talking to another customer, a woman in a cloak and bonnet who had a child tugging at her hand restlessly.

Aihan moved towards the shelves to inspect their contents, moving along them looking for the goods she wanted. Mostly spices and herbs, but she was hoping to find some rice flour. She had been grinding her own from the rice supply in the pantry, but it was hard and time-consuming. Unable to find anything she could identify as rice flour, she approached the man packing shelves and asked, “rice f’our?”

He looked round and down at her, his dark eyebrows going up. The cast of his features looked vaguely familiar.

“Rice flour?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Aye, over here.” He took her to another shelf, where a dozen brown paper packages were stacked. Each was labelled, but of course she couldn’t read the labels.

“Thank ye.” She smiled in gratitude, taking two of the packages and adding them to her satchel.

He nodded and returned to his work. She approached the counter. The customer with the child had gone, and the woman was tidying up the counter as she approached. She looked up and smiled. “How can I—” She took in Aihan’s appearance, and her smile faded. “—help you today?” she finished.

Aihan tried not to flinch internally and, summoning her best smile, she laid her chosen purchases on the counter and then held out the list of bulk goods that Fergus had written out for her. The woman took it from her and read it, her eyes going round at something on the sheet. “These items are for Sceacháin House?”

Aihan nodded. The woman called out to the man packing the shelves. “Alex.” Her next words were in Gaelic and beyond Sceacháin , Aihan couldn’t follow them. The man took the list, stared at Aihan with a troubled frown, and disappeared through the curtain.

“The order will be delivered tomorrow morning, payment on delivery,” the woman said, beginning to tot up the pile of goods on the counter. “That will be one pound, two shillings and sixpence,” she said, holding out her hand.

Aihan, having no idea what that was, offered the contents of the purse Fergus had given her. The woman took a selection of coins and pushed the rest back to her. Aihan needed to understand the currency better, or she would get robbed.

“Thank ye,” she said.

“Are ye Col’s new housekeeper, then?” asked the woman, putting the coins in a drawer behind the counter that she locked with a key on a chain from her belt.

“Aye,” said Aihan readily enough. It was as good a description as any, she thought.

“Hm.” The woman’s lips compressed, and she looked Aihan over again, as if appraising her worth and finding her wanting. Aihan bristled at this, but swallowed her ire. Col wouldn’t thank her for causing a scene in the village, she suspected. Gathering up her packages, she gave the woman a dignified nod and left the shop. But she could feel the woman’s eyes on her all the way out the door.

Her next port of call was the Spotted Chicken, or Speckled Hen, as she had learned was the actual name of the tavern. Entering the dark and warm interior of the tavern, she found the publican behind the counter as before. The tables were crowded with customers drinking and eating, and a comfortable buzz of conversation filled the air. A fire crackled in the large hearth, the source of the warmth. As she approached the counter, the conversation gradually died down as all eyes turned to look at her. She flushed faintly but ignored this and the conversation gradually resumed.

The big man with the red bushy beard raised an eyebrow at her and said, “Aye, lass what cannae do fer ye?”

“Information,” she said, placing one of her own gold coins on the counter.

He looked at the coin and back at her.

“Aye, what d’ye want to know?”

“Tall Chinese man. Ming Liang. Where he go?”

He leaned on the counter and stroked his beard.

“Well, I don’t rightly know, lassie. South, I guess, but where exactly?” He held up his hands and shrugged.

“Who know?”

“Bobby Farrell’s yer man. He was tracking the Chinese, full of it he was.”

“Where he?”

“Edinburgh at the moment, on business. He’ll be back in two or three weeks.”

She nodded and pushed the coin towards him. “Thank ye.”

He frowned at her. “Mac Sceacháin spoke to him, did he nae tell ye what Bobby told him?”

Aihan’s heart skipped at this confirmation of her suspicions. She shook her head and left. Like the woman in the shop, she could feel his eyes on her all the way to the street. She had a slightly sick feeling in her stomach that Mac had kept things from her about Liang. Her next task was to find out what and why.