Page 16 of Sweet Home Highlander
“And you needn’t worry,” Aisla said, turning back to him after the maid left. “Julien isn’t a jealous man. It’s rather refreshing to be trusted.”
Niall felt the walls of the bedchamber squeeze, pushing him toward the thoughts and memories he’d worked so hard to bury. “’Tis good to ken my initial estimation of him was right. The man’s an idiot.”
“For trusting me, I presume,” she said, lifting a heavier linen wrapper from the bottom of the bedstead. She threw it on, cloaking the dusky nipples and plump breasts that had sung a wicked song to his groin.
“I should ken.”
“Why have you come, Niall?”
He turned away from the tapestries, forcing his brutish erection under control, and speared her with a hard glare. He’d developed it in the mines over the years, when working with laborers who weren’t willing to give their best efforts, or who were lazy and ended up endangering other men, deep in the subterranean tunnels.
“I havenae heard from the messenger I sent to Edinburgh, but ye’re right. Desertion and adultery are grounds for a divorce, and if ye’re willing to plea as such to the courts in Inverness, I will no’ contest it or ye.”
“I…thank you, Niall. Laird. I know my coming here has—”
“I’m no’ finished.”
Aisla’s parted lips snapped shut. “You’re not?”
“Did ye really think it would be that easy?” he asked. “That I’d be happy to give ye a divorce and let ye waltz off over the horizon with another man?”
Aisla’s coppery eyes watched him closely, unblinking. He had her turned around completely. “I’d hoped you’d see that we are both wasting our time and possibilities.”
“Funny how ye should put it like that. Time and possibility. Time is exactly what I want returned to me.”
A wary twist touched the corner of her mouth, and her gaze narrowed in on him. “What kind of fool statement is that? No one can have time returned to them.”
“I want one week,” he said, the leery sharpness of her gaze growing ever more skeptical.
“One week for what?”
He moved toward her, slowly closing the space between them. He traced her scent of honey blossom and musk—a natural perfume that had intoxicated him when they’d been younger.
“One week for every year ye’ve been gone. That’s six weeks that ye owe me, sweet wife. Six weeks here in Scotland at my side as my wife.” Satisfaction curled low in his abdomen at her stricken expression, the pink hues draining from her cheeks. “Andthen, I’ll grant ye a divorce.”
Chapter Five
Aisla fought to keep her knees locked and her mind clear of the sudden burn to smack her husband across his smirking cheek. Was the man daft? Or was he so deep into his cups that he’d finally lost any sense of reason? She gave a delicate sniff, but there was no scent of whisky or any other spirits in the air.
But then she remembered, and Aisla bit the inside of her cheek. She knew what this was. It had nothing to do with spirits, and everything to do with the conversation she had overheard between her husband and brother-in-law at the stables after dinner the first night. She had needed some fresh air after the tense dinner, and as she’d passed the stables, had heard Ronan goading Niall on. Betting him to get her to change her mind about him.
As if such a thing were possible!
Aisla had heard Niall laugh, and she’d moved on, laughing herself. She knew her own mind, and Niall Maclaren would never sway it. Money had been mentioned, she recalled; a debt Ronan had been willing to forget if Niall succeeded. She had brushed it off, certain her husband would not be so desperate. But evidently, her addlepated husband had agreed. Otherwise, why else would he demand such an asinine thing as this?
“Six weeks?” she repeated. She’d planned to be gone from Maclaren in another sixhours! The sole reason she’d come to Scotland without waiting for Niall’s response to her letter had been for Julien’s sake. His mother’s illness had taken a downward turn, and he wanted to marry before she died. Six weeks was far too much time.
Aisla’s mouth opened to tell him what she’d overheard in the stables and that he could take his ridiculous wager to the devil, but her response was thwarted by a soft scuffing of feet behind Niall. They both turned, and in the entrance to Aisla’s bedchamber stood his mother, the Duchess of Dunrannoch.
She blinked in surprise as if to see her son there, but then smiled brightly, despite the rock-solid tension in the air. “Oh, good. I am glad that you are both here. It saves me from taking a trip to Tarbendale.” She patted her son’s cheek. “Not that I need any excuse to visit you.” She cleared her throat delicately. “The messenger from Edinburgh arrived early this morning.”
Niall frowned. “He was supposed to come to me, at Tarbendale.”
Her mouth opened and closed, cheeks flushing red before she answered. “Don’t be cross, my love. I was out for my morning walk and saw him, so I offered to deliver Mr. Stevenson’s response to you myself.”
“What did he say?”
“A divorce is procurable, however, there is a slight complication. Your marriage records will have to be located in Inverness since he has no record of them. He estimates it will take a few weeks, maybe more.”
