Page 15 of Kidnapped By her Highland Enemy
She headed upstairs only to feel a broad hand grip her elbow. Spinning in place, Maisie gasped as this time, his skin was on hers. She felt the rasp of his calluses, the heat of his palm and a fire-sweet singing sensation running up her arm.
Frozen in place, Maisie could not decipher what was happening. A muscle in Lucas’s jaw worked while his grip slid from her, his fingers leaving a lingering heated touch in its wake. “I’ll send supper up for ye.”
With a curt nod, she headed up to the rooms to find more blankets on her bed, a stool, and a copper basin with buckets of water beside it. She sunk to the edge of her cot, and twisted her hand to see if, somehow, he had left a searing mark on her skin. While there was none, she felt it.
Flitting her fingers over the inner skin of her elbow, Maisie stared numbly. What was happening? How was it that Lucas was bringing out all these strange emotions?
“Miss Maisie?” Eilidh greeted her and Maisie’s head snapped up while her cheeks warmed. She had been so lost in thought that she had not heard the woman nearby.
Hurrying to her feet, Maisie went to take the tray from her. “Ye dinnae have to do that.”
“Eh,” the lady waved her off and took the stool. “It’s me pleasure.”
Eying Eilidh’s belly, Maisie asked, “Is this bairn yer first?”
“Aye,” she said while patting her belly. “I feel deep in me bones that it’s a lad.”
Her supper was another bowl of stew, smaller this time, a hunk of cheese, a small loaf of bread. “And if it’s a lass? What then?”
“She’ll still get the same training as we would a boy, but under the quiet,” Eidith grinned, her smile popping a divot in her cheek. “Oliver is set on making sure anyone who is born from us can defend themselves.”
While breaking the flaky brown bread, Maisie kept her head down but asked, “When ye first saw yer husband, what did ye feel?”
“Eh, I reckon I felt a strange sensation in me chest,” Eilidh replied, her voice going warm and lovingly. “When he touchedme, I felt a fire under me skin, nae to mention when he kissed me. The moment his lips met mine, I kent I was done in.”
The first two statements Eilidh made had Maisie trembling where she sat. Barely holding the knife, Maisie managed to mop up the stew with a clump of bread and ate. She got control over her reaction, hopefully, quickly enough that Eilidh had not noticed.
She had felt those exact reactions—eerily enough—with Lucas and she began to flail in thinking what would happen if he did kiss her.
Nonsense. He willnae kiss me, he is me enemy, for heaven’s sake.
However, she felt deep within her heart that he was not her nemesis. He might be her father’s but aside from kidnapping her, he had not done anything to show he hated her. Rather, Lucas had been kind enough, had not threatened her nor had he abused her. What could she have said about any other that wanted to harm her father?
The troubling thoughts made her shiver as if a block of ice had been dropped in the middle of her chest. She forced herself to eat and finish her food, then set the tray aside.
“Why did ye ask, Miss Maisie?” Eilidh asked genially.
“I—” Maisie swallowed. “—I never kent any of the Barclay men were little more than warriors with only one passion, to fight.”
“Many of the men there are more than fighters,” Eilidh replied while rubbing her belly. “Take his lairdship for example, he studied in Glasgow and went to train in Ireland as well. He’s been leading his faither’s men for eight years now and five years ago, after His Highness had ordered Scottish clans to give aid to the English king with his war in France, we sent our men to France to negotiate a separate treaty of alliance. He might have been young but he was the leader of that coalition.”
“He kens diplomacy?” Maisie asked.
“He has a master of most things that ye would never assume,” Eilidh replied, frankly. “He is nae a simple man, lass.”
Sighing, Maisie shook her head, “I dinnae ken what to think about him. He mystifies me.”
“What about ye?” Eilidh asked. “What was yer life like?”
“I am the only child me parents had,” Maisie said. “All me life, I had the best tutors in anything I could fancy. I got archery lessons in between Latin. I learned riding while reciting poetry. Me faither was nae as present in me life as I’d wanted—”He ignored me for years as he wanted a lad.“—and I suppose giving me tutors was his way of caring for me.”
“Yer learned.”
“Aye,” Maisie said, “I want to be a healer like me maither had been before me, but me faither kens it a waste of me time.”
“Why?”
Because he kens I am nay worth anything? Because me birth made me maither ill and that led to her death? Because he would have preferred a lad instead of lass? Could be one of them, could be all.
