Black Richard's Heart (The MacCulloughs #1) - Suzan Tisdale Page 0,22
women possess that drew men to them like bees to new blooms? Black Richard most certainly did not believe in witches or sirens until this day. Now, after his wife’s touch calmed his ire as water douses a flame, and her maid drawing all the men to her with the mere sound of her voice, ’twas enough to make him reconsider his previous beliefs. Mayhap things such as those did in fact exist.
Nay! He refused to believe it. His reaction was nothing more than the fact that he hadn’t been with a woman in too many years to count or admit to. He was a man and she a very beautiful woman. A beautiful blind woman who could not see his hideous face. It stood to reason he would be physically attracted to her. He wasn’t dead after all. Any man would feel the same.
However, he would not succumb to his desires, no matter how intensely he might feel them.
With the decision made that he would not be seduced by his wife’s touch, or the sound of her voice, or her bewitching eyes, Black Richard felt better. Aeschene would be naught more than a way to procure an heir as well as peace for his clan. The only reason he had agreed to the union was to appease his king and to stop at least some of the border raids. That was all she was or could ever be to him; a means of peace.
He was, after all, a scarred, battle-hardened warrior. He had not survived all these many years only to be weakened and knocked down by such a tiny lass as Aeschene. Nay, he was made of stronger stuff than that. Mayhap in his youth he might have had his head turned or his resolve weakened by such a bonny lass. But he was older now and much wiser. He knew the only thing more dangerous than a Highlander bent on revenge or in the heat of battle was a beautiful woman. Beautiful women were deadly.
The sooner he got her back to his keep, the better he would feel about the situation. Once there, he would ensconce her in a chamber with her maid, and try to forget she was even there. Save for the making of an heir, he would keep a very wide and safe distance.
After some time of traveling over a wide-open glen, the terrain grew hillier and rockier. Up and over hills they went, riding in silence, while Richard stewed. Once they were alone, he would explain the way of things to her. He would warn her not to get her hopes up on any kind of warm or romantic feelings betwixt them. He simply was not that kind of man.
He would also order his men, the besotted fools they were, to stay the bloody hell away from the maid, Marisse. She would be forbidden fruit only because he needed her to keep his wife busy and occupied throughout the day.
As he was otherwise lost in his own thoughts of how to survive the next twenty years or so as a married man, he was paying very little attention to his surroundings. They had just crested a large hill and were riding down the other side when they needed to cross a small ravine. ’Twas by no stretch of the imagination a wide or treacherous bit of land. Tapping the flanks of his horse, he urged it forward at a faster pace in order to jump across the small space. ’Twas nothing he hadn’t done a hundred times or more in his life.
Up the horse went, suspended in midair for less time than it took to blink one’s eyes. But ’twas enough that it made Aeschene gasp and hold on more tightly to the saddle. When they landed, Aeschene let out a giggle of surprise and wonder.
“Och!” she declared happily. “That tickled!”
Confused, which was quickly becoming a more permanent state of being than Black Richard liked, he asked, “What tickled?”
“When we jumped,” she replied happily. “I cannae see clearly, remember?”
What not being able to see had to do with anything he couldn’t understand just yet.
“Ye did not warn me we’d be jumpin’,” she said. “But I’m glad ye did nae. The surprise of it made me stomach tickle!”
Feeling like a fool for forgetting she could not see, he felt he ought apologize for his lack of regard.
Aeschene did not seem to mind one bit. “I have missed ridin’,” she said. “I be havin’ a