Chapter 4

Chapter Four

C ol left the cell recalling the rumours he had heard about Chinese warriors roaming the countryside and terrorising people. He had dismissed them as lurid tales at the time, but perhaps there was truth to them after all and this Ming Liang was at the root of them? He tried to remember when he’d heard the stories. Soon after Merlow had left to go to London and didn’t come back as he said he would, but three months later, and with a bride.

Given that Merlow had spent the last ten years of his life in China, it seemed logical to assume that if Chinese people had been seen in this vicinity, it had something to do with him.

Calling the dogs, he set off to walk into Dysart and ask some questions. The mist had cleared to a fine day, and he crossed the lawn where she had ambushed him that morning. Seeing something glinting in the grass, he bent and picked up the knife she had threatened him with, a drop of dried blood on the tip. The handle was carved ivory and showed a sinuous, many-scaled dragon. He tucked it in his belt and kept going.

He headed for The Speckled Hen. If anyone had heard of these rumours it would be Angus McMurtrie, the Hen’s publican. Entering the taproom, he found McMurtrie behind the bar, pouring drinks for his customers. He was a big man with a generous stomach and bushy beard.

“Laird!” he exclaimed. “How might I serve ye?”

“I’ll have a pint of ale, please, and a mite of gossip.”

“Aye?” McMurtrie filled a tankard from the barrel on the bench behind the bar.

“Chinese. Had any in these parts recently?”

“Aye, had a Chinese lassie in here yesterday looking fer ye. She find ye?”

“She did. She’s looking for a relative, name of Ming Liang. Dark hair tied back, about so high,” he indicated with his hand. “Older fellow, in his forties maybe?”

“It’s possible. We had some Chinese fellows around a few months back.” He handed over the tankard as Col flipped him a coin. Angus caught it expertly and pocketed it. Jerking his chin, he said, “Yon Sassenach over there in the green jacket may be able to tell ye more. He’s been dining out on tales of the Chinese for months.”

“Thank ye,” said Col, tipping his tankard in toast as he took a sip. He wandered over to the fellow in green who was seated at a trestle table with three others playing cards.

“Afternoon lads, mind if I join ye?”

“Col! What brings ye out on this fine day?” asked Todd McTasker, the village blacksmith.

Col climbed over the trestle and sat down as Todd quipped, “It’s the laird, Bobby, best mind yer p’s and q’s.” He nodded to the man in green.

Col held out his hand. “Bobby, is it? Col Thornton.”

“The Mac Sceacháin!” said Todd sotto voce.

“Bobby Farrell,” said the man in green. “Pleased to meet you.”

Col knew the other men, who all greeted him with a raising of their tankards and a murmured Laird.

The dogs settled under the table at his feet.

Sipping his ale, he said, “Aye, I’m after a bit of gossip and told ye may know.” He nodded to Bobby. “Chinese spotted in these parts?”

Bobby’s eyes lit up and he smiled, rubbing his hands with relish. “Aye, you’ve come to the right place, my lord. I’ve made somewhat of a hobby of gathering tales about their antics. People like a story, and I’ve been happy to oblige. In fact, I was telling the story only a month or so back when a big Chinese fellow interrupted me in a very—entertaining way, shall we say.”

“That’s what ye call it, do ye, Bobby?” interjected one of the other men. “Ye’re a mad man tangling with them Chinese. Peculiar lot, if ye ask me.”

“What happened?” prompted Col, leaning forward.

“Well, I was telling the story of the three Chinese warriors that were harassing people in the countryside about three months ago now. I showed this piece of cloth from their uniforms.” He produced a piece of blue quilted cloth from his pocket and laid it on the table. “When out of nowhere, this Chinese fellow sprang up and threw a dagger, pinning it to this very table. You can still see the hole here.” He pointed to the tabletop and the cloth.

“Aye,” corroborated Todd. “Fair scared the shite out of us, he did!”

“What did he want?” asked Col.

“Wanted to know where I’d got the cloth. Seemed to recognise it.”

“How tall was this fellow?” asked Col.

“Big for a Chinese, but not as tall as you, Laird.”

“And how old would ye say he was?”

“Hard to tell, they don’t tend to show their age much. But he wasn’t a young fellow, thirties or forties I’d say.”

Col nodded. It seemed to him this was likely the fellow Aihan was looking for.

“Any idea where he went?”

“After one of his men died in his arms, seems likely he went south, chasing after the others. But you’d know about that, my lord, it was your brother they was chasing.”

Col, in the act of swallowing, choked. After mopping his streaming eyes and blowing his nose from his coughing fit, he said hoarsely, “Tell me about it.”

“You didn’t know? Quite a hero, your brother, by all accounts. Took ’em on, all three of ’em, and bested ’em in a fight. He left to go south the next morning, and they followed him. Last seen in Edinburgh, oh, three months ago now, give or take. The big Chinese fellow came nosing around about six weeks ago?” Bobby checked with the others, and they all nodded.

Todd added, “One of his men came back, but he was mortally injured. Died in the street out there,” he waved his arm. “The big Chinese fellow was verra upset.”

“Damn!” muttered Col under his breath. That explains Merlow’s sudden departure then. Why didn’t he tell me what was going on? Typical of bluidy Merlow to keep things to himself. He couldn’t help a little rush of pride at the notion his younger brother had acquitted himself so well in a fight, though. Growing up, Merlow’s lack of interest in the manly sports of fighting, drinking, and womanising had made their father despise him, prompting him to call him a Jessie and other insults in an attempt to get him to “man up” to his standards. To Merlow’s credit, he took it on the chin and refused to buckle to the old man’s bullying.

“Well, that’s quite a tale, Bobby. Angus!” He called to the barman. “A round of ale for these gentlemen, please, on me.”

An hour later he headed back to Sceacháin House, the dogs trotting by his side, while he mulled over what to tell Aihan. Some version of the truth, but perhaps not all of it. Not, for example, about the death of the man in the street. How did he come to be mortally injured? Was that Merlow’s doing too? He didn’t want her haring off south if his brother was likely to be in any danger from her. He had no illusions that the little woman wasn’t lethal if she chose to be, and something told him she would likely hurt anyone who had hurt her relative.

He wished he knew what relationship lay between her and Liang. Irrationally, he fervently hoped he wasn’t her husband. If only to save him the shame of having inappropriate thoughts about a married woman. Just recalling the sensation of Aihan straddling his lap did things inside his breeches he hadn’t thought about in relation to a woman other than Cat since he’d met his wife fourteen years ago.

He descended the steps into the cellar and found his sons staring at Aihan through the bars of her prison. She was sitting cross-legged on the mattress, ignoring them, with her hands resting palm-up on her knees and her eyes closed.

“Athair!” said Rory, turning to him. “Who is she? And why have ye got her locked up?”

“Her name is Aihan, she is a Chinese woman looking for a relative. I locked her up because she attacked me in the park this morning.”

Rory crowed at this. “That slip of a lass felled the likes o ye?”

Col flushed and growled, “She took me by surprise.”

Rory guffawed in delight, slapping his thigh. “I’d have paid money to see that, Athair!”

“Aye, well, ye won’t see it, so never you mind. Get upstairs the both of ye, Fergus’ll have dinner on the table soon.”

Rory, still grinning from ear to ear, hove off, followed by Callum. Peace seemed to have been restored between them for the moment. Which surprised Col somewhat. He’d thought the war would continue. He’d question them both separately later. Find out what they were thinking. He did need to pay more attention to them.

“Aihan,” he said quietly.

She opened her eyes and looked at him calmly. All the fire and agitation he had seen earlier seemed to have melted away. She rose smoothly from her position, like a flower unfurling its petals, and came to the bars.

“Ming Liang,” he said slowly.

She nodded, leaning forward, her air of calm seeming to dissipate somewhat.

“He was seen around here.” He gestured to try to make his meaning clear.

She asked something that he thought might be “Where?”

“He is gone,” he said. “I don’t know where.” It took some time to convey his meaning, but he thought she finally understood.

Her shoulders slumped in disappointment, and she put her hands on the bars and said something else. She gestured to the lock. She wanted him to let her go.

He shook his head.

She hit the bars in frustration and let fly with a string of sounds that made no sense but conveyed her fury and disgust.

“I will find out more,” he said with gestures, but he wasn’t sure that she understood. She flung away from him and dropped onto the mattress in high dudgeon. She was clearly furious with him.

He sighed and left her. He wasn’t letting her out until he was sure she wouldn’t go after Merlow. If Ming had followed his brother south and not come back, something must have happened to him. He would write to Merlow and find out.

That night, Col’s sleep was disturbed by a dream from which he woke sweating and sporting a fierce cockstand. Lying on his back while his heart rate settled and the sweat cooled on his skin, he tried to recall the details of the dream, but they eluded him, blown away like a will-o’-the-wisp when he tried to grasp them. Vanishing like morning mist.

The cockstand persisted, though. Hot and insistent, his balls ached, and his cock twitched and leaked on his belly. Where has this sudden surge of lust come from?

The feel of Aihan straddling his lap came back in vivid, visceral detail, and he groaned aloud, his hips bucking involuntarily. Raw desire flooded his body, and he closed his eyes on a curse. His hand reached for and clasped his cock, as he moaned in real distress. His cock pulsed, and he spat on his hand to provide some lubrication, stroking and squeezing. His other hand fondled his tight balls, and he cursed again, almost crying with the intensity of need.

Rolling onto his knees, he grabbed the headboard with one hand to steady himself and stroked his cock with the other, his hips thrusting violently into his fist. The tight coil of desire wound up and up, teasing his senses with nerve-tingling pleasure. His breathing ragged, his heart rate thundering, the pleasure spiked, and he thrust hard into his fist. Flinging back his head, he roared at the ceiling, “Foooock!” as his seed boiled out of him, spurting all over the sheets and pillow in multiple exquisite shots.

He grunted and groaned with each wave of release and shuddered in the aftermath, his head hanging, as he gasped for breath. Tingles ran down the insides of his legs to the soles of his feet and up his spine to his scalp. His body quivered with the violence of his climax. And he puffed out a breath on another much quieter curse. “Fooking hell!”

He collapsed sideways onto the bed and just lay there in a kind of stupor for several minutes, drifting on a haze of post-orgasmic pleasure. Eventually cold air made him reach for the bedclothes and pull them up over him. He nestled into the mattress, which rustled beneath him, and he sighed, drifting off to sleep.