Page 30 of A Two-Faced Laird
She kissed her father and mother and left.
After the door had closed behind her, Eleanor Findlay smiled at Bettina.
“And it is time she was married!”
“I doubt she would agree with you.” Bettina laughed. “Edina is a free spirit, and the thought of being tied to a man does not appeal to her one bit at the moment.”
“She always was!” Eleanor agreed. “But she cannot stay a spinster forever, Bettie. She will have to marry at some point. You want grandchildren, surely?”
“We do,” Roy told her. “But we will not force Edina into marriage, Milady.”
“Well, there are many eligible young men around,” Lady Findlay went on. “Not sons of Lairds and Barons, of course, but squires, stewards, and gentleman farmers. She will be spoiledfor choice, and I am sure she will have plenty of offers. Not only is Edina beautiful, but she is clever, and it is a myth that men don’t like intelligent women.”
Bettina laughed, but she had picked up the subtle warning in Eleanor’s words.Lewis was not for Edina.
“Are there any more ceilidhs coming up?” she asked. “Perhaps we should start thinking about more new dresses, Eleanor!”
Lady Findlay clapped her hands.
“Laird Kennedy is having a sixtieth birthday celebration next month!” she cried gleefully. “We can alert the seamstresses tomorrow. Oh, and Edina, too!”
Edina wentto her bedroom immediately after dinner, and climbed into bed at once. Her eyelids were drooping, and even though her mind was still full of Aidan, she simply could not stay awake, and she fell asleep almost instantly.
A few hours later, she woke up abruptly. She had been dreaming about Aidan, of course. They had been entwined in a passionate kiss, but the bedroom door had opened abruptly, and their parents had walked in. That was when she opened her eyes, terrified, her heart pounding, before she realised that the kiss had been no more than a fantasy, and she breathed a deep sigh of both relief and disappointment.
The moon was almost full that night, and when she woke up, there was a sliver of light coming through the gap in her curtains, drawing a silver line across the floor. The fire had gone out, and her chamber was cold, but she rose from bed anyway, then wrapped her robe and a blanket around herself before putting on a thick pair of slippers.
Edina looked outside. The sky was clear that night, but when there were no clouds it was always colder, and after a moment’s thought she went to fetch a second blanket and wrapped it over the first. She opened and closed the door as quietly as she could, then padded along the corridor to what had been Lewis’s room since they were kids, glad of her warm footwear as she remembered her freezing feet the day he had carried her upstairs.
Edina had never been carried in a man’s arms before and thought it’s one of the most pleasurable experiences of her life. She did not realise that she was smiling from ear to ear at the memory until she arrived at the door, then her expression changed to one of apprehension as she reached for the handle. Would the door be open?
Fortunately, it was, no doubt, to allow the healer to come and go. Edina closed the door quietly and turned down the lantern she was carrying in order not to wake Aidan as she moved across the room to the bed. She looked down at him for several minutes, unable to tear her gaze away from him.
Aidan was an untidy sleeper. He lay on his back, his limbs spread all over the bed. The blankets and sheets were tangled all over and around him, evidence of the fact that he was extremely restless.
Edina smiled as she looked at him; this was what she should have expected, she thought. She could never imagine Aidan laying his head on the pillow and sinking into slumber at once, then lying practically motionless all night.
She could hear that his breathing was hoarse and rasping, and he coughed now and again, but he did not seem to be in too much discomfort. Edina breathed a sigh of relief, having reassured herself that all was well.
She loved being there with him, her only regret being that she could not climb into the bed alongside him and hold him until he was better.
By the faint light of the lantern she could see that he had not been shaved for two days and stubble glinted on his face. How she longed to run her hands along its rough surface, since it always raised goose pimples and caused a delightful tingling on her flesh when she did so.
However, Edina knew she would wake him up if she touched him, so instead she sat on the chair beside his bed. Eventually, she fell asleep with her head pillowed on her arms on the rumpled blankets. Later, she would reflect that she had never had such a good, sound sleep in her life, but she woke to the sound of the household stirring. Then she crept back to her room, but not before planting a soft kiss on Aidan’s lips.
Aidan was summonedto his father’s study to meet with the tenant farmers that morning, and was surprised to find that he felt much better than he had the night before. His coughing had stopped, for one thing, and the pain and huskiness in his throat was gone. What had caused this seemingly miraculous improvement, he wondered?
He had no time to think about it any longer, however, since the men were gathering in the Great Hall. The Laird looked him up and down and smiled.
“You seem to be much better this morning, Son.”
“I feel better,” he answered. “Perhaps it’s because I had such a good night’s sleep.”
The Laird nodded, and the meeting began. Once more, however, Aidan was finding it hard to concentrate. He had beendreaming that Edina was by his side during the night. In fact, he had even been able to smell her, and at one point he even thought he was touching her hair.
When the meeting was finished, his father took him to his study, bade him sit down, then sat behind his desk and stared at him for a long moment.
Eventually, he said, “What is wrong with you?”
