Page 45 of Winter Longing
“Ye ken how to rub her down?” Roibeart asked, remaining near the entry.
“I do, thanks. I appreciate your time.”
Ailsa did not duck quickly enough and winced when Cole moved forward, his gaze sweeping the stables until it landed on her.
“Ailsa,” he said, showing some surprise to find her here.
Guilty shock?she wondered.
She turned reluctantly as he stopped just outside the stall, her expression guarded. “Cole.”
He hesitated, then, frowning over her mare’s noticeable wheezing, and asked, “What’s wrong with her?”
Ailsa sighed, her frustration momentarily eclipsed by concern for the animal. “She’s been wheezing. I dinna ken what to do for her.”
Cole frowned, stepping closer. “I can barely breathe in here myself. You think it’s the straw or something? Maybe it needs to be changed more often?”
Ailsa shrugged, wanting him gone. “The straw is scarce in winter. We conserve it as best we can.”
“Well, that’s not ideal,” Cole said, moving the mare he’d borrowed into the stall next to her. “I’m not saying I know anything about this stuff, horses and stables, but it seems like it might help if the stalls were cleaned out more often.”
Ailsa tilted her head, considering his suggestion. It wasn’t unreasonable.
With renewed purpose, she decided she needed to do two things: remove Ceara from the stables for a while to see if fresh air might relieve her symptoms, and confront Cole Carter about what she’d just overheard.
“Ye said ye dinna need help with the riding,” she said, a wee bit more tartly than she’d wanted, laying the saddle blanket over Ceara’s back while she kept her back to Cole. “But it was me ye wanted away from.”
She felt more than saw Cole freeze in the next stall, with only the half wall between them.
“Ailsa, no. Jesus, don’t think that—it’s not like that at all. Actually, it’s the complete opposite.”
Ailsa snorted her disbelief. “Och, ye wanted more time with me and thus cancelled our standing lesson.”
“Listen,” Cole growled with his own frustration, “don’t just assume things about me. There’s a good reason why I couldn’t continue with lessons from you.”
“So it seems,” she said, hoisting the saddle up onto the blanket. “But leave it alone, I’m nae interested in your reasoning.” God’s bluid, but she hated that it sounded as if she were about to cry. How extraordinary! That she suffered so greatly by his casual defection!
“I saidcouldn’t, which means it wasn’t my choice,” he argued, coming to stand in the opening of Ceara’s stall while Ailsa secured the girth. “Ailsa, will you stop and listen to me?”
She felt his hand on her arm from behind and shook him off, her face contorting angrily.
“Go on, leave me be,” she commanded imperiously.
Cole did not heed her. “Ailsa, Father Gilbert said it was a bad idea, that it would cause trouble,” he said next.
With stirrups in hand, about to attach them, Ailsa whirled, surprised somehow to find him so close. Her chest heaved with indignation and pain, but she looked up at him, startled by his revelation. “What do ye mean? What did he say?”
Cole’s shoulders lifted slightly in a shrug, but his eyes never left hers, holding her gaze with an intensity that matched her own. His jaw clenched in frustration.
“Father Gilbert said that you weren’t supposed to be seen with a man without your maid around, or a chaperone. He said that you must remain untouched, above reproach for your marriage to that MacLae guy.”
While Ailsa stared at him, her brain whirring with more frustration for what the priest had said and done, Cole added pointedly, “He sought me out specifically to deliver that message, so it didn’t seem like a matter in which I had a choice.”
As she digested this, she couldn’t honestly say that it came as any great surprise to her. She’d kept the lessons hidden, had gone out of her way to not be discovered, tricking Anwen to be rid of her confining company, engaging the lad to bring Cole to her, far removed from the keep and watchful eyes. She’d known herself that it wouldn’t have been well received.
Still, she harbored some annoyance that Cole wouldn’t have simply mentioned Father Gilbert’s interference—it would have saved her two days of fretting, wondering what she’d done to earn his disfavor.
“Ailsa,” Cole said, his deep voice softened, “let’s not pretend the priest is wrong. Spending time with you was—is—dangerous.”
