“I mean,” she went on, “For example, when I first met him, I truly thought he despised me! The way he looked at me…”
“It was yer hair,” Nathair told her nonchalantly, as though this was a normal thing to say. “Yer hair an’ yer eyes. The oddities in them, specifically. Sandy is nae good wi’ oddities.”
Sandy? Nathair calls him by a nickname? How…humanizing. Like he’s just a normal man.
“What do ye mean?” she asked.
“Me dear friend likes things neat an’ tidy an’ in order. He’s been that way since he was a lad, an’ only more so since his Mither went. Yer wee black strip in that pretty hair, the odd sheen to yer eyes—he couldn’ae make sense o’ them, which meant he couldn’ae make sense o’ ye. That made ye a problem,” Nathair told her.
He chuckled. “Well, that an’ the fact that that farm o’ yers is the bane o’ his life. He’s got the whole clan in order, apart from the O’Donnel land. Ye can imagine how frustratin’ that must be for him.”
Cicilia nodded slowly, her hand touching the black hair she knew was showing under her bonnet
So he thought me unnatural. Me an’ me siblings as well, probably. Nae wonder he looked like he’d seen a ghost.
“But there’s one thing I dinnae understand,” she said after a moment. “How…how did he go from that to—” But she cut herself off, not wanting to share the details of the morning in the barn with Nathair.
The Man-at-arms looked at her for a moment as if sizing her up before answering. “Sandy is nae good wi’ people,” he said finally. “He’s only courted one lass in his whole life, an’ she took his heart an’ tore it to shreds the day before they were to be wed. He was just a lad, then, nae even twenty. He had nae bothered before, but she insisted an’ pushed, an’ he grew to like her. After she left, he dinnae bother tryin’ again.”
Cicilia was somehow surprised. Yes, Alexander was somewhat awkward, but he was a handsome man and the skilled way his lips had moved against her own…
Och, what do I ken? I’ve kissed one lad apart from him an’ bedded none. Maybe he was actually bad an’ I just thought otherwise.
But she hadn’t imagined the heat that started low and filled her body when he kissed her. She hadn’t made up the way his touch set her on fire.
“I dinnae ken why ye’re tellin’ me this,” she said finally.
Nathair chuckled. “Och, dinnae give me that. I may nae ken the details, but ye were nae just havin’ a chat in the stables this mornin’, I’ll bet me hat on it.”
“Ye are nae wearin’ a hat,” Cicilia pointed out.
He just winked.
“An’ besides,” Cicilia continued. “We’ve only kent each other for a few days.”
Nathair shrugged. “As have ye an’ I. We’re friends, are nae we? An’ that aside, sometimes people just have a…connection. There’s nae explainin’ it. Sometimes ye see someone for the first time an’ ye ken they’re never leavin’ yer life again.”
A devilish smile played on Cicilia’s lips, distracting her from her own discomfort momentarily. “Aye? Is that what’s happenin’ wi’ ye an’ Jeanie?”
To both her delight and a little surprise, Nathair’s cheeks turned ruddy under the wild beard. “Hush, lass,” was all he said in response, obviously embarrassed.
She took pity on him and continued. “There are plenty o’ desirable women, an’ plenty o’ farmers, if that’s to Alexander’s taste. Plenty o’ lassies who will nae quibble wi’ every word to cross his lips, an’ all. I think ye’re overexaggeratin’ or mayhap lettin’ yer imagination get the best o’ ye.”
“I am doin’ nae such thing,” Nathair said, looking horribly offended. Then he was grinning again. “I’m nae declarin’ he’s harborin’ some great love for ye or anythin’, dinnae misunderstand. But he cares for ye, an’ yer siblings, an’ ye cannae pretend he has nae noticed ye as a woman.”
“As a troublemaker, maybe,” Cicilia retorted, hoping that she wasn’t blushing as much as she thought.
“Aye, that an’ all. I think that’s what’s keepin’ him interested. He’s a good man
, ye ken. Sandy’s had many people approach him through the years, but the one thing he’s always been missin’ is a challenge.” He chuckled, holding up his glass to her. “An’ if ye’re nothin’ else, Cicilia O’Donnel, ye’re a challenge.”
She raised her cup in response. “Here’s to bein’ troublemakers, then,” she told him, her mind whirling at his implications.
“To troublemakin’, an’ a good man,” Nathair agreed, and they both drank.
A challenge for Alexander? Nay. More like he’s gonnae be more of a challenge to me an’ me heart than I care to consider.
Chapter 14