Page 9 of A Two-Faced Laird
Presently, they came to the burn at the bottom of the hill and stopped to let the horses drink. Lewis would usually dismount at this point and drink ale with the rest of the company, but this morning he simply sat on his horse’s back, staring into space.
“Ye look as if somethin’ is botherin’ ye, Master.” The second-in-command of the guard, a tall, bulky redhead called Douglas Black, frowned at him. “Is anythin’ wrong?”
“No, thank you, Douglas,” Lewis answered, smiling at him. “I am a bit tired, that is all.”
Thinking to distract him, Douglas asked, “Young Mistress McCarthy has turned intae a nice lookin’ lass, eh?”
Lewis’s heart lurched at the mention of Edina, but he merely said, “Yes, she is.”
“Aye,” the older man went on, laughing. “If I was a bit richer, I would tell my son, Ally, tae set his cap on her, but the world isnae like that, is it, Master?”
There was no resentment in his voice. The world was as it had ever been, divided between rich and poor, upper class and lower class.
“No.” Lewis patted the other man’s shoulder. “I wish it could be different, though.”
Since her arrival, she had been all he could think about. The gloomy atmosphere in the castle had magically changed, and everyone’s mood was lifted by her presence. The fact that Edina enjoyed everyone’s attention gave him a small window to breathe on his own, having his parents off his back for a while. He was grateful for that, but his thoughts troubled him still; Those smoky, violet eyes haunted his mind like two mirrors that reflected his soul.
They stayed for another few minutes before heading back up to the castle, where, as luck would have it, Edina was standing watching some of the guards wrestling.
She looked very appreciative indeed. She was even shouting encouragement to the smaller of the two men, and Lewis realised that she was obviously one of those people who liked to see the underdog win, as he did.
He smiled inwardly, then checked himself. He was supposed to be trying not to think about her! Lewis was about to move away before she saw him, but she turned around, and her gaze met his squarely. He saw her smiling at him, then her expression became fixed, as if she could not look away.
However, Lewis was afire with jealousy as he saw the guardsmen casting appreciative glances her way and talking about her behind their hands. He felt angry enough to go and punch one of their smug noses, but as the Laird’s son, he could not set such a bad example.
Instead, he strode across to the two wrestlers on the ground and hauled the smaller one to his feet. “Go and have a bath, Altair,” he instructed tersely. The man looked puzzled, but obeyed his orders, then Lewis faced the bigger man with a savage grin.
“Ready for action, Geordie?” he asked. The man was so tall he could look Lewis straight in the eye, and now he smiled back at him. “On your feet this time.”
“Aye. Ready when you are, Master,” he replied with a grim smile.
The two men clasped hands, fist to fist, elbow to elbow, then began to fight. Lewis landed the first blow on Geordie’s jaw, but the other man was a seasoned fighter and replied with a hook underneath his opponent’s chin. Lewis’s head snapped back, and he stumbled off-balance for a few seconds before righting himself and charging at Geordie, who sidestepped.
Lewis was not new to boxing, but he did not let it show. He had only picked the fight with Geordie to distract the men’s attention, anyway. If they were watching him, they would not be ogling Edina.
Edina remembered the first time she had seen Lewis, his dark red hair the colour of flame in the sunlight, every sinewy line of his body so overwhelmingly masculine that she couldhardly believe it. Now, seeing him sweaty and dishevelled, he was even more so, and she felt such a leap of desire inside herself that she wanted to throw herself into his arms.
What would it feel like to kiss those full lips, she wondered? She had never kissed a man before, but now she very much wished that Lewis could be her first.
Edina thought that boxing was not at the forefront of Lewis’s skills. She had seen him on a horse, and by the grace and ease of his seat and the way he controlled the animal, she knew that his talents lay in that direction. As well as that, he was an excellent swordsman and archer, but boxing was always his brother’s strong suit.
After a while, Edina realised that he was not even trying very hard, and wondered if he was acting like a very untalented boxer to encourage people to watch him get beaten. If so, he was succeeding, since everyone around the courtyard was pointing and jeering at them.
For a split second, Edina thought he had been knocked unconscious, then Lewis rose on his elbows and several of his men hauled him to his feet and took him away, every one of them in stitches.
Edina had just seen another side of this complicated man, one who was not averse to making a joke against himself for the amusement of others. He was not always the grim, temperamental creature she had seen so far. No—he could act in a way that made him look like a man with a self-deprecating sense of humour, just to bring out the best in other people, and her admiration for him increased tenfold.
Her maid, a young woman of seventeen called Mairi, watched him walking away and sighed.
“Dae ye mind if I say somethin’, Mistress?” she asked.
“Of course not,” Edina replied, smiling at the girl. “I am never going to be one of those employers who do not give you thefreedom to speak your mind and ask me questions. Anything you say to me stays between us.”
Mairi stared up at Edina adoringly.
“Thank ye, Mistress,” she said happily. “As soon as I saw ye, I knew I was goin’ tae like ye. I wanted tae ask ye if ye thought the Laird’s son was a handsome man.”
Her cheeks had gone a rosy shade of pink as she spoke, then she dropped her gaze from Edina’s, embarrassed.
