Page 37 of A Two-Faced Laird
“You look worried,” Edina observed, frowning. “Are you all right?”
He hesitated for a moment, then, because he could not keep it to himself any longer, he blurted out, “I love you, Edina, more than any other woman I have ever known.”
Her eyes widened with disbelief, because it was the last thing she had expected to hear from him. Edina looked down into his soft brown eyes and smiled.
“I love you, too,” she murmured, “but I do not know what we can do about it.”
“Who would have thought that we could ever fall in love?” Aidan laughed and sat up, turning to face her. “I, the tormentor and you, the tease. Sometimes I hated you when we were growing up, but now I cannot imagine my life without you. You make me feel like myself again, Edina.”
“Likewise,” she replied, smiling. “But I think other plans might have been made for us. You know what our parents would say if they knew how we felt about each other, but we are still young, and we cannot predict the future. Who knows? There may be other loves for both of us.”
Aidan felt a stab of panic go through him.
“Do you want that?” he asked fearfully.
“No, I most definitely do not,” she replied, sighing, “but we must face reality. I am an advisor’s daughter, and you are a Laird’s son—no matter your name. Perhaps if my father was a squire or a gentleman farmer there might be a chance of us being together, but as things stand?—”
She shrugged. “We are helpless, Aidan. There is no chance for us.”
“What about your story, Edina?” he asked. “There is always hope.”
Edina gave a disbelieving laugh.
“My story was a fable. It was not true, you know that.”
“Yes, but it had a meaning,” he replied. “Whoever gives love is loved in return.”
Edina shook her head.
“If only that were true,” she said sadly. “That was fiction, but this is real life.”
Aidan sat up and drew Edina into his arms. He wondered if he should tell her about Fenella Anderson and the marriagecontract, but decided not to. There might still be some way out of his predicament, and if there was, he was determined to find it.
“What would you do if I had to marry another woman?” he asked suddenly.
Edina could not answer, even though she knew exactly what she would do, what she would have to do. She would run away and take her broken heart somewhere else to heal, since she would be unable to bear the thought of seeing him with someone else.
Aidan saw the sadness in Edina’s eyes turn into glistening tears, and he kissed her tenderly. The look she gave him as she stood up and left was one he would never forget.
14
Both Edina and Aidan slept restlessly that night, neither of them able to stop thinking about what had happened the day before, and their conversation the previous evening. Aidan spent half the night pacing the floor, and the other half lying in bed, tossing and turning in a futile attempt to fall asleep. He succeeded at last just before dawn, but when Mick came to wake him up he was grouchy and irritable, and decided that a hot bath would be just the thing to calm him down. It usually worked, after all.
However, this morning was different. This morning, the water was not hot enough, soap got in his eyes, and when he asked Mick to cut his toenails, he was so restless that his manservant accidentally cut him.
“For god’s sake, watch what you are doing,” Aidan snapped. “You stupid man!”
“Master Lewis,” Mick said angrily. “What is wrong wi’ you today? Ye are actin’ like a spoiled bairn!”
“You know, I could dismiss you for talking to me like that,” the furious Findlay heir growled, his face like a threatening thunderstorm.
“Aye, I know ye could,” Mick answered, nodding. However, he had been a soldier, and did not back down easily. “An’ I cannae stop ye, but I have my pride an’ a’, Master, an’ so ye may dismiss me if ye wish.”
He knew that there was no chance that he would not be let him go, since he had told Mick a hundred times that he had never had a better manservant. He was the only one who had been able to improve the Laird’s son’s skills with a sword.
The two men stood staring at one another for a few tense moments until Lewis’s shoulders slumped and he sighed.
“I am sorry, Mick,” he said wearily. “I slept badly last night, but I should not be taking it out on you.”
