Page 25 of Scot of Desire
“Aye, I did. It gave me freedom,” she said with a sigh, looking out to the hills beyond the opening of the stable.
“Were ye always escorted? By Bran, perhaps?” His mention of Bran made her stomach clench. She kept her eyes on the hills as she answered him.
“Sometimes. Sometimes by me braithers.”
“He seems very protective of ye,” Cillian muttered, now moving to the horse that had been prepared for him. He took the reinsfrom the stable boy and dismissed him with a sharp wave of his hand.
Ilyssa eyed him as he did so. It struck her that Bran would have thanked the stable boy for his help with the horse.
“I suppose he is as good as another braither tae ye,” Cillian went on.
A braither? Ergh!
The idea that she was fantasizing about a man who was practically her kin made her wriggle in the saddle uncomfortably.
“We are close,” she murmured, refusing to say anymore. “Well, shall we ride?” She flicked the reins and urged the horse out of the stable. Cillian shot off after her and did a decent job of keeping up with her.
When they reached the bridge leading out of the castle, he was at her side, his eyes more on her than the path ahead.
“I hear from me faither that Bran has something of a reputation.”
“A reputation? What kind?” She slowed up her horse, jerking her head around to watch Cillian.
“Well…” He grimaced, pausing as if in pain. “A diplomat. His braither’s right-hand man when it comes tae politics. I hear he travels much across the clans. It’s said he has a lover in every clan.”
“That is nae true!” Ilyssa pulled sharply on the reins of her horse, turning fierce eyes on Cillian. “Bran isnae a cad, or a rogue. He is a good man. Ye have yer information wrong, Cillian. Quite wrong indeed.”
She faded, realizing that he hadn’t defended himself at all. As she had stopped riding, so had he. He was staring at her in the most curious way, with a very small smile turning up the edge of his lips.
“That was quite a reaction,” he murmured, the words barely noticeable at all.
Ilyssa’s breath stalled in her throat.
He was provoking me. He wanted tae see a reaction.
“Perhaps he is nae a braither tae ye and I was wrong. Perhaps he is something more than that?”
“Are we here tae talk, or tae ride?” she said in challenge and flashed him a forceful smile. When his eyebrows shot up in surprise, she flicked the reins hard and urged the horse to gallop away. In but a second, she was shooting off into the distance.
Try tae keep up with me now, Cillian.
“Bran. Bran!” Catreena was still on his tail. She had chased him through the castle, every single room in which he had tried to take refuge from her, and she was now following him out into the gardens.
Bran even considered wildly hiding in a tree, but the days were gone where he was small enough to climb trees without making branches fall down. He tried, instead, to mask his body around the back of a yew tree, but Catreena came upon him fast, making herself jump by finding him suddenly and yelping in surprise.
“Oh, me heart!” She planted a hand to her chest. “Dinnae dae that.”
“Ye were the one following me,” he reminded her. “Ye dinnae wish tae find me? Then dinnae look fer me.”
“Ye and I must talk.” She grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the yew bush, deeper into the garden.
Bran sighed, knowing it was probably best to get this conversation over and done with. Throughout breakfast, both Ilyssa and Catreena had been staring at him. He could guess well enough why Ilyssa was looking at him. Her cheeks were red, suggesting that just like him, she was thinking of what had passed between them in his bedchamber the night before.Catreena, on the other hand, had looked sharply between him and Ilyssa, constantly.
She kens. Or at least, she suspects.
Catreena dragged him to the very edge of the garden where they halted beneath a Douglas fir that glittered with ice. They stood beside a low-lying stone wall, high over the nearby loch, staring down into its watery depths, which had frozen at the edge and were just beginning to melt in the strong sunlight of the day.
“What in the wee man’s name is happening with ye and Ilyssa?” Catreena asked.
