Page 62 of A Two-Faced Laird
“Merci,Monsieur,” she said, smiling warmly.
The artist rolled the drawing up and fastened it with string, then Aidan paid him and added a generous tip, and when the artist saw it, Aidan thought he was going to kiss him. His homely face broke into a wide grin, and he bowed to them.
“Merci pour le cadeau, Monsieur!”
“Thank you for the present.” Edina translated for Aidan.
Edina waved and blew him a kiss. She felt a sense of warmth inside that she had made someone’s day, and even though she had found out that travelling on the wide sea was not pleasant, she was impatient to be on the boat. It was time to go home.
21
Inverness was not always a pleasant place to live. The winters were brutal, and the summers were extremely short, but Aidan and Edina cared nothing for any of that. They rented a small house with two bedrooms, which would suffice for the time being until there were too many more Findlays to fit into it.
Aidan’s mother had been sending them a small amount of money from time to time, but Aidan wanted to work for a living. He took a job at the docks unloading the boats and made some good friends despite his upper-class accent and fine manners.
Occasionally, as he hefted a crate onto his shoulder, he laughed inwardly as he realised that he had given up a huge castle with acres and acres of land and the prospect of a Lairdship to become a labourer.
Edina began to set up another school for the children in the area, and wished she had Mairi to help her with all the many small tasks that needed her attention. However, she knew that her days of having a maid were over, and that she would never be married to a rich man with a fine house, but she had never wanted that; everything she needed was within the four walls of the little house. Her life was complete.
She often wrote to her mother, who knew where she was living, but she had no interest in her uncle and his family, and this made her feel wretched, because she owed him so much. However, knowing him and how close he was to Laird Findlay, she knew that her and Aidan’s home would soon be known to the Laird. This was something that both of them wanted to avoid at all costs.
“I am so happy,” she said one night as they were lying in bed.
It was the best feeling in the world to be lying snuggled up to Aidan, cosy and comfortable under their thick woollen blankets while the wind howled outside and rain battered the windows.
“I feel as if we are in a little fortress,” he replied, smiling. “Protected from everything, needing only each other.”
“No, needing only one more thing,” Edina corrected him sadly. “A child.”
Aidan leaned on one elbow to look down at her.
“Edina, if we are not blessed with children, I will still be perfectly content. All I need is you.”
Edina could not see much of him in the darkness, but she smiled.
“I want a son,” she told him. “I want a boy just like you, with brown eyes and chestnut hair. I want a house full of happy children, and in the fullness of time I want to be a grandmother.”
Aidan sighed and lay on his back again.
“Then there is only one thing to do,” he told her.
“What is that?” Edina asked curiously.
“This.”
He pushed up her nightgown, grabbed both of her hands in one of his, and without any warning, he entered her with one hard thrust. Edina squealed in surprise, then lay back and submitted completely, enjoying the feeling of being completely under Aidan’s control. Sometimes they would play the game theother way round, and she would be in charge, but now she was under his command, and it was blissful.
Her climax was gentle this time, but Aidan let out a shout as he came and collapsed on top of Edina. Obviously, his had not been quite so mild. As he came back to earth and recovered his breath, he asked, “Do you know how much I love you, Edina?”
“As much as I love you,” she murmured lovingly.
When the knockcame to the door the next day, Edina was bathing. Her hair was dripping wet, and she was naked, but she climbed out of the bath and wrapped herself in a robe before going to answer it.
“Who is there?” she asked irritably.
“Your mother and father!” her mother’s voice answered.
Edina pulled open the door, almost dislodging her robe, and with a delighted cry, she threw her arms around Bettina’s neck, then Roy’s.
