Page 54 of Sighs of the Highland Wind
Rona, her youngest sister, was hoping to eventually get a position in Castle Kilcarron, home of the local Laird, Ross Lewis, starting as a kitchen maid. That was as high a position as a girl of her social status could aspire to at the age of fifteen.
“How are ye, Da?” Janet appeared by Ava’s shoulder, looking tousled and sleepy. She gazed tenderly at Colin, then knelt down beside him and brushed his sparse hair away from his forehead. “Did ye sleep well?”
“Aye, Janet,” he answered, smiling weakly. In truth, he had slept about as well as he had every other night, which was very badly indeed.
Ava took the opportunity to go and start breakfast, which usually consisted of thick oats porridge and a cup of goat’s milk. It never varied, since they grew their own oats, except on Sunday when they added eggs and a few slices of black pudding if they had any.
When they had finished eating, Rona cleared the plates and cups away while Janet helped her father to wash and dress himself.
This was the time when Ava would usually go out to weed the kitchen garden and plant more seeds, but today, there was a very pleasant distraction. It came in the shape of Cameron Dalziel, the most handsome and sought-after young man for miles around.
Cameron had the kind of looks she had only ever heard about in stories of the Norsemen who had raided Scotland a few centuries earlier. His hair, which he wore shoulder-length and often tiedback with a leather thong, was as fair as a field of ripe wheat, and his eyes were a vivid bluish-green.
As well as all that, he had the kind of body that women craved and men envied, with broad shoulders, muscular arms and the kind of powerful thighs that only came from hours of manual labor. He was riding his working horse Jimmy, a gentle grey giant who pulled a plow as well as he carried a rider.
When Cameron dismounted it was easy to see why the men of the village respected him so much, since he stood taller than most of them by at least six inches. No one had ever dared to pick a fight with him, since the big strapping man was a force to be reckoned with, at least against other men! However, he was not aggressive by nature, and Ava could have wrapped him around her little finger without much effort at all.
Added to all his other attributes, he was fiercely intelligent, and had been taught by the parish school to read, write and count, along with all the other boys in the village. Unlike the sons of the nobility, his education would go no further, but he was better off than the girls, who received no education at all.
It was assumed that all they would ever do was give birth and run a household, so they only learned the basic skills needed to do household tasks, which were taught by their mothers. Ava thought that this was grossly unfair, since she had always wanted to learn to read and write, and it was a source of great frustration to her.
Cameron smiled widely as he walked over to Ava, showing two deep dimples in his cheeks as well as even white teeth, and as usual, her whole body tingled. As well as that, she felt a strange, warm moisture between her legs and a sweet, pulsing ache. She had no idea what these feelings meant, but she only experiencedthem when she saw Cameron. If only she had someone to ask, she thought.
Now, she went forward to meet him, and he reached out his hands to grasp hers. “How are you?” he asked, in the deep, gravelly and thrilling voice that always sounded like a caress. When he spoke to her, she felt like the only woman in the world.
“I am well, Cam.” She smiled, but he must have seen something in her face, because he frowned.
“No, you are not,” he answered, his bright eyes searching her face. “Somethin’ is worryin’ you, Ava. Tell me what it is.”
“Just the usual, Cam.” Her voice was trembling on the edge of tears. “Da is getting worse. I feel so - I feel so helpless. He coughs up blood every time now an’ I know that one o’ these days I won’t be able to stand it anymore. Oh, Cam, I just want him to die. Does that make me a very wicked person?”
“No!” Cam pulled Ava towards him and held her close in his strong arms. The sight of tears shining in her eyes made him want to soothe her and tell her everything would be fine, that her father would recover, but they both knew it would be a lie. Instead, he said, “it is no’ a sin to wish for someone who is dear to ye to be out of their pain, Ava, but a’ we can do is comfort them as much as we can till it is a’ over.”
“It is no’ fair, Cam.” She was weeping openly now. “They put animals out o’ their pain. Why can they no’ do it wi’ people?”
Cameron shook his head and sighed. His heart was breaking for her; he was a big, powerful man who had been rendered helpless by the circumstances in which he found himself. He would walk through fire for Ava; she was the love of his life, although he had always lacked the courage to tell her so. Now, as he felt her softbody against him, he would have done anything to take her pain away, even bear it for her if he could.
“Life is no’ fair, Ava,” he said gently, sighing. Then he became brisk as he put her away a little and smiled down into her eyes. Hoping to distract her a little, he asked, “do ye have a cup o’ ale for a thirsty man?”
Ava found that smiling was much easier as long as she was smiling at Cameron. “I will see what I can find,” she promised as she left to go back into the cottage.
Cameron’s gaze followed her as she made her way inside. Her hips swayed as she walked in an unconsciously sensual way, and his shaft responded by stiffening in response. How he loved her! How he wanted her!
‘I cannot go on feeling this way,’he thought grimly.‘I must tell her.’
2
After he had drunk his ale, Cameron looked up at the sky. It was partly sunny and partly cloudy, but there was no rain in the air. The soil was damp from rain that had fallen a few days before, but not soggy, so it would be a good day for plowing.
There was one field that had been lying fallow since the previous summer, and this was the one that was about to receive his attention first. Fortunately it was not a huge piece of land, no more than half an acre, and Cameron was a veteran at steering a plow, so it took no more than a few hours to complete the job.
Afterwards, sweating and exhausted, he went to find Ava again. He came across her in the kitchen garden, where she was digging the soil preparatory to planting onions and turnips for their supply of winter vegetables.
He watched her for a few moments. Even though her hands were buried in the dark soil and her arms filthy up to the elbows, her face smeared with mud where she had wiped sweat away, she was lovely. Her long golden-brown hair had been tied back that morning, but most of it had escaped from the thong that wassecuring it. Now it formed a shining curtain that hung down on either side of her face.
Seeing Cameron’s shadow falling over her, Ava looked up. In the weak sunlight her hazel eyes were pure gold, and for a moment, he stared at her, mesmerized. He longed to sweep her against him and fulfill the dreams he had been having lately. He wanted her in his arms, in his bed, in his life, now and forever, but he realized that would be completely out of the question while her father was alive.
He had not realized that he was staring at her until she stood up and gave him half a smile. “What are ye lookin’ at?” she asked, laughing as she wiped her hands on her apron.
