Page 5 of A Two-Faced Laird
The Laird only frowned and asked, “I take it you are enjoying your pheasant, Son?”
“It is very tasty,” Lewis replied as he wiped his lips before positioning his fork over his meat again.
However, he looked up as his father asked, “Have you nothing to say to Edina? She has spent a long time away from us, and now she is back. Have you nothing to ask her, and this time, would it hurt you to be a little more civil?”
Lewis looked startled. He had been keeping his head down and minding his own business all this time. But, suddenly, his father’s piercing blue eyes were staring into his with such an obvious threat in them that he was sure everyone around the table could see it. He was familiar with that stare, and it usually presaged a towering rage that would only show itself properly when there was no one to witness it. Lewis’s father was a gentle man, but like everyone else, he had two sides.
“I apologise,” Lewis said, politely but coldly. For a few seconds, he seemed lost for words. “Did you enjoy Inverness?”
Edina forced a smile. “Indeed I did. It is a fascinating place,” she answered nervously, but soon she regained her control.
“Do you know there is supposed to be a monster there? Dozens of people claim to have seen it. But seriously, I learned how to find my way around Inverness and how to sew and knit my own clothes, even though I doubt they are skills I will ever need.
I met so many people, lovely ordinary people, and I realised that we are all the same, and that is why I want to be useful to them. I would like to teach the children to read and count, and I would like to tell them stories!”
Edina did not realise how passionate she sounded until her father, Roy McCarthy, who was sitting beside her, patted her hand.
“You look inspired, Edina,” he said softly.
“I feel that way,” she told him, smiling.
2
When Lewis came back from the meeting, he was tired, and there was a throbbing pain behind his eyes. He swallowed some willow bark tea, which was his least favourite beverage, bathed and dressed in what he hoped were suitable clothes. His thoughts were mutinous; he would have much preferred his food sent up to his chamber where he could sit with a tray on his lap and his feet stretched out beside the fire, but there was no helping it. This was a special day, and he had to do his duty by his family, even if it was the very last thing in the world he wanted.
He barely gave himself a glance in the mirror as he clattered down the main staircase and strode into the dining room, then flopped into a chair. He sat in his usual place beside his father and heard his stomach rumbling as he smelled the fragrance of freshly cooked pheasant. His mouth was watering; he was absolutely ravenous, and waiting was making him not only hungrier, but more and more irritable by the second.
Lewis poured himself a glass of weak ale. He always drank moderately, especially on an empty stomach, since he had seen the unfortunate effect strong liquor had on some people. Thedoor of the room swung open, and he looked up, thinking it was aboutbloodytime.Then he stopped thinking altogether.
His eyes met the smokey grey-violet gaze of one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen, and for a split second, he felt puzzled. They were expecting Edina, were they not? But this shapely, stunning creature could not be her—could it? Edina was a mischievous little girl who had only just lost her milk teeth. Where had the years gone?
Almost without thinking, he moved around the table and bowed, then pulled out a chair for her, ignoring the servant whose place it was to do so, then watched her as she sat down. They exchanged a few conventional words of greeting, and every moment after that he wanted to feast his eyes on her as she conversed animatedly with all the members of his family.
From time to time, Edina would look up, and their gazes locked, but he could find nothing to say. Then, at his father’s urging, he addressed a few words to her and cringed at the way he sounded; sullen and cold.
As they left, Lewis pulled Edina’s chair out for her again, and she looked up at him with a troubled expression.
“Have I said something to offend you?” she asked.
“No.” He was taken aback and hastened to reassure her. “I have had a hard day, I am tired, and I was starving. Sometimes it makes me irritable. Forgive me.”
Edina smiled. “You are a human being,” she said warmly. “And we are not perfect. Lewis, you have changed so much. I had visions of the boy I left, with no whiskers and a high voice, and now look at you; every inch a man.”
She looked him up and down, but instead of making him feel embarrassed, her lingering gaze was having a very different effect.
He felt himself stiffen, and was glad that he was wearing his kilt and not his breeches as he felt her eyes travel from his toes to the top of his head, lingering on his mouth.
“You have changed too,” he remarked.
Involuntarily, his gaze drifted to the round swell of her breasts. Her dress was modest, but nothing could mask Edina’s seductive curves. With the swan-like column of her neck and her waist-length river of tawny-gold hair, she was perfect.
“I remember a tiny little girl who played with a doll she carried almost everywhere.”
“She is in my bedroom as we speak,” Edina told him. “We are hardly ever apart, me and Jennie. Now, since we are both exhausted, I will bid you goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Edina,” he said gently, then watched her walking away.
She swayed sensually as she moved, and he could hardly believe how wantonly he was reacting to her. She was very far from the first woman he had ever lusted after; there had been many, and many times he had acted on that lust, but this was Edina, his childhood playmate, the closest thing he had to a little sister. It seemed all wrong, somehow.
