Page 49 of Sweet Home Highlander
She froze, recalling what Niall had said. “Aschildren! And you didn’t happen to mention that to anyone, did you? Like my husband?”
“Aye. I suppose I might have hinted at it. I was jealous,” he said easily. “Ye were supposed to be mine, ye ken. I was young and stupid, remember? Why wouldnae ye want to marry the big smelly lummox. Or is that no’ what ye used to call me when ye thought I wasnae listening?”
She did choke on her ale this time. Aisla coughed and her eyes watered as Dougal laughed and patted her on the back.
“I can’t believe I ever called you that,” she said once she could speak again. “You’re not smelly at all.” Aisla laughed and leaned closer to him, dragging in a purposefully loud inhalation. “You smell rather clean. Have you taken up bathing, then?”
Dougal roared with laughter, attracting a few startled glances from those around them. Then, feigning upset still, he said, “I demand compensation for that insult, Lady Maclaren…in the form of a dance.” He punctuated his statement with a gallant bow, and then held out his hand for her to accept.
Aisla took another long sip of her ale in order to drain it, and set the goblet onto the ground before taking his hand. “Very well, I shall pay the piper accordingly.”
They joined a few other couples dancing to the pipe music, the group dance a much livelier and infectious version of the reels she’d been subjected to in Paris. Aisla and Dougal held hands as they spun in a circle, and as she followed the beat of the music, spinning and kicking up her heels, the movements all came back to her.
She’d danced at Montgomery at every opportunity, and Dougal hadn’t been wrong: she would dance until she was fairly glistening with sweat. It had always been so muchfunto dance, unlike in Paris, where dancing wasn’t so much of an entertainment as it was a social necessity. One did not want to be a wallflower. As Dougal guided her through the reel, leaping and kicking up his own heels, and looking like he was thoroughly enjoying it, she felt lighter than she had in a long while.
The pipes quit playing much too soon, and Aisla let out a sigh of discontent as the musicians stood up, lifting goblets of ale to wet their lips. She spun around looking for her own goblet, and felt the ground tilt beneath her feet. Dougal caught her by the elbow as the courtyard became a blurry haze of bright colors, the noises suddenly amplified.
“Too much spinning about’s made ye dizzy,” he said, breathing harder after the dance. He put his other hand to his heaving chest. “And I have to say, I’m no’ as light on my feet as I used to be.”
Her vision stilled a moment later, her ears became oddly muffled, and then she saw her goblet on the ground had been kicked and overturned. Dougal snatched it up for her, a wash of amusement in his eyes when he met her unsteady gaze. “How about another?”
Good Lord, a third?
She could hardly stay upright as it was after the mulled wine and two cups of ale. A firm hand closed around Aisla’s wrist, and on her next breath, she saw Julien sliding in between her and Dougal. “If you don’t mind, sir, I’d like to have a word with Lady Maclaren.”
Julien’s voice was tight, and in the strange focus that seemed to be overtaking Aisla in the last handful of minutes, she could see the muscles in his neck and jaw tensing. With an odd expression that struck Aisla’s slow senses as irritation, Dougal bowed before taking his leave. Was it her imagination or did he look somewhat vexed? Surely, she wasn’t as foxed as all that?
The rest of the courtyard was a blurred haze again when Julien faced her.
“Chérie, I think you’ve had a bit too much to drink,” he said, a polite grin still fixed on his mouth.
“Jules, please,” she said, her tongue feeling oddly fluffy. “I’m simply relaxing. And Dougal is an old friend.”
“A source of contention as well, if I recall.”
“That was long ago,” she said. Julien shot down the excuse with a haughty prop of his eyebrow.
“In your half-sprung mind, perhaps. But there is a certain someone who hasn’t stopped grinding his jaw ever since you and your old beau started ambling, arm in arm.”
Niall? She knew she shouldn’t twist around and search for him so openly, but the thought seemed to form itself much too slowly, and her body leaped ahead. She staggered a bit as she searched the courtyard for her husband, and she had to admit—even if only to herself—that Julien might have a point about her having imbibed a hair too much. She felt ridiculously good right then, and she wasn’t sorry for it, not one bit.
“And, if I might add, he is firmly betrothed to one of the Campbell laird’s daughters,” Julien murmured. “Yet another source of contention.”
“The feud…you know of it?” she asked, her words still a little loosely formed.
Julien made a dismissive noise. “I have been living at Maclaren these weeks, my darling, and there is plenty of discussion regarding the Campbells. Though I don’t know as it’s a feud. Not yet, at least.”
Aisla couldn’t keep her mind on the topic of the Campbells as she continued to search the grounds for Niall. Her eyes even seemed to be stumbling as they skipped over faces. But then they slammed to a halt on a smoldering blue gaze. Niall stood across the courtyard, and he didn’t look pleased in the least. But then Aisla took in who he was standing with—a crowd of men, and one woman. Fenella stood at Niall’s side, and she, too, was staring at Aisla, a sneer touching the corner of her mouth. Aisla couldn’t help noticing that her hand rested on the laird’s sleeve, as if it had every right to be there. She blinked, swaying slightly. Perhaps it did.
It was just like before, she thought with a sour twist of her stomach, when Niall would spend the festivities with others instead of her. She’d been made to wait for Niall to notice her, to care that she was alone while everyone else enjoyed themselves. She’d been a fool, desperate for the crumbs of his attention.
Aisla tore her eyes from Niall’s stare, and glared defiantly at Julien as she whisked a glass from a passing server. Whisky, it looked like. She didn’t care.
“You’ll have a devil of a head in the morning,” Julien said.
“My behavior is my business, Lord Leclerc.”
“No need to get waspish,chérie.”
