Page 33 of Sweet Home Highlander
The first, a box of fine linen paper from Italy, had confused him. He’d wondered if perhaps he’d ordered the stuff and forgotten all about it. But then, an hour later, the velvet drapes had come, and Niall had known for certain he had not simply forgotten aboutthem. When the jade knick-knacks had been delivered not an hour more after that, he’d stared at the anatomically correct bull and figured out what, exactly, was happening.
His wife.
He had to laugh at her ingenuity, the little minx. Clearly in his absence, she’d done a little shopping, and by the looks of every package, had directed all of them to be addressed to Laird of Tarbendale. She’d wanted him to see them. Niall wasn’t lacking for coin, but he knew the purchases would have put a notable dent in his coffers.
“Laird, should I bring this crate up to Lady Maclaren as well?”
It was what Angus had been doing for the last two days…first bringing them to Niall, then hauling them up to wherever his wife happened to be at the moment. Usually, it was inside one of the many unused rooms inside Tarben Castle, directing maids to tidy up and taking notes on how she planned to redecorate, as if she intended to stay for longer than six weeks. He’d be a fool to believe that, though.
Niall snatched up one dainty soap. Brought it to his nose, and gave it a sniff. It smelled like a woman, fresh from a bath, her skin still warm and dewy. Aisla had used a different soap long ago, one that smelled of honeysuckle. A flicker of heat burst through his chest before he squelched it.
“Laird?” Angus said, interrupting the memory.
Niall tossed the soap in with the others. “Nae. I’ll see to it.”
He’d avoided confronting her about the purchases for long enough. She’d wanted to work a reaction out of him. Spark an argument, perhaps. She’d wanted him to rush to her, disgruntled, and let loose. She wanted his emotions charged, which they both knew would make him more susceptible to lust.
So Niall had done the reverse. He had stayed away. He hadn’t said a word, or raised a brow, or formed a single grimace, even when Fenella had informed him that Lady Maclaren had bought three frilly white mobcaps for the housekeeper to wear. “She says it’s required of the servants,” she had fairly screeched. Fenella didn’t wear any head covering the way some of the lower maids did, and she certainly didn’t wish to put on one of the dowdy caps now.
“Do as she says, Fenella. ’Tis only for a short while,” Niall had replied, trying not to grin as a puce flush bloomed on his housekeeper’s cheeks.
“Where is Lady Maclaren?” he asked Angus now as he placed the cover back on the crate and lifted it.
“Last I ken she was in the dining room, m’laird.”
“Thank ye, Angus,” he said as he strode toward the study door. He paused a moment, thinking of something, if a bit belatedly. He grinned. “And if any more packages arrive, have them sent to Lord Leclerc’s chambers at Maclaren, with a message to the shop that the bill is to be scrubbed from my account and directed to him instead.”
With a chuckle of satisfaction, he left the study and headed toward the dining room. It wasn’t as grand as the great hall, where there were tables and chairs and benches and tapestries, all collecting dust. Niall had no use for such a large room when he could take his meals in the smaller one, or better yet, in his study or bedchamber. He didn’t entertain except for once or twice a year, and he didn’t have a collection of men to feed the way Ronan did at the Maclaren keep.
The last two evenings since he’d returned from Edinburgh, he and Aisla had supped together in the dining room, though it had been quick. And quiet. His wife was waiting for an outburst, a barrage of questions about the bevy of packages turning up on his doorstep. And each night, she’d worn something that was…well, a little less.
Last evening, her breasts had practically been spilling out of the bodice of her dress. Niall had worked to keep his eyes on the stew and bread before him, though his appetite had been pushed aside, drowned by a different hunger. One that involved giving the trim of the bodice a scant tug, freeing her breasts and setting his mouth to them. He’d eventually given up on eating and withdrawn from the room. Christ, the woman was either going to drive him insane, berserk with lust, or starve him slowly.
He took a look at the tall clock as he walked the hall toward the dining room. It was too late for the morning meal, and too early for the maids to be serving the midday one. What was Aisla doing in there?
Niall gripped the edges of the crate he carried and let out a controlled breath when he finally stepped through the propped open doors to the room. In every corner, along each wall, there were new potted ferns, palms, and shrubbery. On the center of the table, there was a birdcage, with a pair of doves inside. And standing near two of Niall’s men, employed loosely as footmen, was Aisla. She had her back to him, as did the footmen who were attempting to position a giant painting on a wall that had, up until that morning, housed an ancient and hideous portrait of the first Maclaren laird.
“To the left a bit,” Aisla said, and the footmen did as she instructed, adjusting the framed picture of…well… Niall wasn’t quite sure what he was looking at exactly. Upon further scrutiny, he felt his face—and other parts of him—fill with blood. He was not a prude, but the image made heat scorch every part of him like a blushing schoolboy. The footmen’s faces were red, though he couldn’t determine if it was from exhaustion or embarrassment. Niall swallowed as they centered the painting according to his wife’s demands.
Locked in a passionate embrace with one hand settled intimately between her legs, the painting of Venus and Mars by Titian was priceless—and unapologetically scandalous. For a moment, Venus’s face morphed into Aisla’s, and his into Mars. Niall couldn’t help the growl that crawled to life in his throat, and tore his eyes away, his fingers clenching on the crate beneath his arm.
“Oh, yes, that’s perfect,” his wife said with a small clap of her hands. The footmen stepped back, their eyes pointedly averted from the painting.
“What have ye done with my ancestor?” Niall asked, alerting them to his presence. He saw her shoulders and spine go rigid with surprise, then almost instantly relax again. She then turned slowly, confidently.
“Nothing that shouldn’t have been done to him ages ago,” she replied, lifting a small copper jug from the table and walking toward one of the larger palms, which practically blocked an entire window. “He was a crabby looking old man, with a pouty lip and a lazy eye.”
“He did no’ have a lazy eye.”
“He stared down at the dining table as if he was appalled at everything being served.”
“What kind of fanciful rubbish is that? ’Tis a painting.”
“So is this,” she replied, waving her hand toward the new piece while watering the palm. A burst of color warmed her cheeks, though she did not look up at her new acquisition. Evidently, she was not insusceptible to the lurid display of flesh, either.
Niall eyed the painting, and with a nod of his head, dismissed the two uncomfortable footmen. They scurried out, fast.
He then walked to the table and set the crate of soaps down with a crash. “Yer soaps have arrived. All fifty of them.”
