native, Felicity Blair. Was it Eoin who told you this, by chance?’
Felicity, to Ainsley’s amazement, blushed. ‘People used to look forward to the Hogmanay party for months,’ she said. ‘They’re already wondering, after yesterday, whether Innes will be holding one.’
‘And I’m wondering why you’re avoiding answering my question.’
‘Because I’m going back to Edinburgh today, and my life is complicated enough without adding a farmer who lives in the middle of nowhere into the mix,’ Felicity said tartly. ‘Sorry, Ains. Sorry.’
‘What’s wrong, Fliss?’
Her friend shook her head, blinking rapidly. ‘Nothing. I am tired from all that dancing and too much whisky, probably, and I have to go and pack, for the steamer leaves Rothesay this afternoon and I can’t afford to miss it.’
‘But...’
‘No. I’m fine.’ Felicity spoke brusquely. ‘Much more important, I can see that you are fine, so I can leave you without worrying too much. I’ve some more letters for Madame Hera. They’re on the dressing table in my room at the castle. And I’ve got the ones you’ve written to take with me. I think that Madame Hera’s latest venture is going to prove very popular. You are going to carry on with her, aren’t you?’
‘Of course I am,’ Ainsley said. ‘Why wouldn’t I? This— You know I’m only here temporarily. I’ll be back in Edinburgh soon enough.’
‘Or sooner, if you are unhappy. You promised, you remember?’
‘Yes, but...’ Ainsley stopped, on the verge of saying that she could not imagine being unhappy. She’d thought that before. ‘I remember,’ she said.
Felicity hugged her. ‘I’d better go. Just be careful, Ainsley, your Mr Drummond is a charmer. Don’t let him charm you too much. Take care of yourself, dearest. I’ll write.’
A kiss on the cheek, a flutter of her hands, the fainter sound of her bidding farewell to Innes and she was gone.
‘It’s bad luck to frown on the morning after the Bonding,’ Innes said, closing the bedroom door behind him. ‘What has Miss Blair said to upset you?’
‘Nothing.’ Ainsley poured the coffee. ‘I don’t know where we’re going to sit for breakfast. There are no chairs.’
‘We’ll take it in bed.’ Innes placed the tray in the centre of the mattress, patting the place beside him.
‘I wonder what possessed Mhairi to send up a tray? She never has before.’
‘Second sight,’ Innes said flippantly, handing her an oatcake. ‘She knew today was a holiday.’
‘I suppose that’s part of the tradition, is it?’
Innes grinned. ‘It is now.’
Ainsley looked down at the oatcake, which was spread with a generous layer of crowdie, just exactly as she liked it. She wondered if Innes would return to his own room tonight. She took a sip of coffee. It had always been John who decided whether or not to visit her. She had never once been in his bed. He had never once slept in hers. She took another sip of coffee. Not even in the earliest days of her marriage had John made love to her twice in one night. He’d never asked her what she wanted. Never seemed to imagine that she could want something more. It had never been fun, and there had been very little pleasure. This was different in every way.
‘What are you smiling at?’
Ainsley’s smile widened. ‘You’d think, after last night, that we’d want to spend the day in bed. Sleeping,’ she clarified hastily.
Innes refilled their coffee cups, and cut into a slice of ham. ‘Tempting as it sounds, I have other plans.’
‘You’ve tired of my charms already,’ Ainsley said, through a mouthful of oatcake.
‘I said I didn’t want to spend the day in bed, I did not say that I didn’t want to experience more of your charms.’
‘The palace of pleasures. There’s more, then?’
‘Keep looking at me like that and I’ll show you more right now.’
‘No, thank you, I’m much more interested in my breakfast,’ Ainsley said primly.
Innes leaned across the tray to lick a smear of crowdie from the corner of her mouth. ‘Fibber,’ he said.
She touched the tip of her tongue to his, then pushed him away. ‘You are not irresistible, Innes Drummond.’
‘No, I’m not.’ He pulled the oatcake from her hand and put it back down on the tray. ‘But you are,’ he said.
* * *
Ainsley leaned back, tilting her face to the sky. It was a guileless blue today, with not even a trace of puffy cloud as yet, and the sun was high enough to have some real warmth in it. The boat scudded along, bumping over the white-crested waves. The breeze was just sufficient to fill the red sail, to flick spray on to her face, but not enough to chill her. ‘It’s perfect,’ she said.
Innes took her hand and placed it on the tiller on top of his. ‘You’re supposed to be helping,’ he said.
‘I am.’ She smiled at him lazily. ‘By not interfering. Besides, I want to look at the view, it’s so lovely.’
They had sailed south down the Kyles of Bute towards the Isle of Arran, whose craggy peaks were such a contrast to the gentle, greener Isle of Bute, before veering east, round the very tip of the peninsula on which Strone Bridge was built, to follow the coastline north. ‘It’s only about fifteen miles overland from the castle,’ Innes told her, ‘but there’s just the drover’s roads and sheep tracks to follow.’
‘This is much nicer.’ Innes was wearing a thick fisherman’s jumper in navy blue that made his eyes seem the colour of the sea. With his tweed trews and heavy boots, his hair wildly tumbled and his jaw blue-black, for he had not shaved that morning, he looked very different from the man she had met all those weeks, months ago, at the lawyer’s office in Edinburgh. ‘Your London friends would not recognise you,’ she said. ‘You look like a native.’
‘A wild Highlander.’
She smoothed her palm over the roughness of his stubble. ‘Is this for me, then? Is this the day you drag me off to your lair and have your wicked way with me?’
‘Wasn’t last night enough?’
‘Didn’t you say this morning that there was more?’
Innes caught her hand and kissed it. His lips cold on her palm, then his mouth warm on each of her fingers. ‘Are you going to prove insatiable?’
‘Will that be a problem?’
Innes gave a shout of laughter. ‘It’s every man’s dream. There’s plenty more,’ he said, releasing her and hauling at the tiller to straighten the dinghy, ‘but unless you want us to end up on the rocks, maybe not just yet.’
Ainsley
