Page 33 of The Wrong Bride
Was Dermot the key to unlocking this prison? How could she use his dissatisfaction?
ASthe sun was setting that evening, Riona was standing in her bedroom, looking out over the courtyard, when the door opened behind her. She turned to find Mrs. Wallace and Mary carrying supper trays.
“’Tis so romantic that Himself wants to dine alone with his bride,” Mrs. Wallace was saying to Mary, who blushed upon noticing Riona.
Riona gritted her teeth and forced a smile.
McCallum entered then, his hair drawn into an untidy queue, his garments stained from a day in the training yard. “Forgive me for not bathing before joining you. I lost track of the hour. We can eat while my bath is prepared.”
She should be repulsed by his earthiness, but itseemed manly and invigorating to be reminded of the way he’d used his body under the sun, his muscles rippling with every thrust of the sword, every jump to miss a swinging blade.
She had to stop thinking about this or she wouldn’t be able to meet Mrs. Wallace’s kind eyes.
When they were at last alone, he dug into his food as if he hadn’t eaten at dinner, when she knew he had, along with the men he’d been training.
“What did ye think of Larig Castle?” he finally asked, as he took a drink of whisky.
She eyed the strong drink. “In England, wine would be served with dinner, and the men retire for more potent libation away from the ladies.”
“Ye might have noticed,” he answered wryly, “but we aren’t in England.”
She nodded with a sigh and returned to his question. “The castle is impressive, of course, although I’m given to understand that the only books are within your private solar—locked away from the rest of the household.”
“I’ll see that ye’re given access, of course, although I don’t know if my father had the kind of books ye’d be interested in.”
“How do you know what I’m interested in, when you know nothing about me?” she asked sweetly.
“Very true,” he said, wearing a reluctant smile. “We could change that.”
She ignored that and wondered why did he haveto catch her eye like this? He wasn’t even that handsome. But she was learning that a man didn’t need a classic profile to be masculine and appealing.
She hesitated, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of wifely conversation, but she needed to know everything she could. “The men you trained with today—they didn’t seem to have a problem with you having been gone all this time.”
He shrugged. “If they did, ’twas no matter to me. I don’t need to be liked, only respected.”
“Now that sounds like wishful thinking.”
He paused while slicing a piece of mutton. “That I be respected?”
“No, that you don’t care if you’re liked. You’ve brought a bride home—the wrong one, I’ll remind you—and you’re supposedly fulfilling this contract that will help your clan. You want them to like you for it.”
He sat back in his chair and wiped his lips with a napkin. “These things I do out of responsibility and duty, Riona. We all have such things in our lives. Did ye not have obligations at home?”
“Obligations you took me from?” she shot back.
“Obligations that every young woman leaves behind when she marries.”
She sighed, knowing he spoke the truth. “I nursed my sister through illness much of the last ten years.”
His dark eyebrows rose. “Ten years? You were but a child then.”
“I believe you were stealing muskets from redcoats at that same age.”
A smile quirked the corner of his mouth. “True. What illness does your sister suffer?”
“Consumption.”
He frowned. “I’m sorry.”
