Page 27 of A Bride for the Wicked Highlander (Daring a Highland Laird #2)
M addie sat across from Oscar at the dining table, the mood in the hall undeniably strange. She couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was, but it was rather like one side of the table had a secret that they weren’t divulging to the other.
Grace and Hunter were chatting amiably to her left, discussing their plans to return to Castle MacLogan.
They spoke fondly of Ellie, of home. Meanwhile, Oscar and Ryder were silent, concentrating on their dinner of roast venison, buttery potatoes, and delicious herbed vegetables with such force that they were clearly avoiding something.
“I was talking to Mr. Fallow about Lady Isle,” Maddie said, unable to bear the stilted silence and squeaking cutlery anymore. “He seems to think there could be interesting species growing there.”
Ryder lifted his head, offering a sympathetic smile. “There’s naught on Lady Isle but gulls and rocks, m’lady. A bit of moss if ye’re lucky.”
“Well, moss can be very interesting indeed,” Maddie insisted. “Do you think you might take us there one day, Oscar?”
Her husband glanced at her, his hand tightening on his knife. “It wouldnae be suitable. It’s a garrison, nae somewhere for ye to explore.” His tone was pleasant enough, but his eyes did not match; they were too wide and too wild, like a man who hadn’t slept in days.
“But we could arrange for ye to go to the coast,” he added. “There’ll be enough there for ye to catalogue. I wouldnae imagine it’s much different to what’s on the island, but I’m nae an expert.”
She nodded slowly. “I’ve read that what grows on islands can be very diverse. Sometimes, they create their own special environment that can’t be replicated which, in turn, creates species of plants and animals that can’t be found anywhere else.”
“Aye, well, we can tell the soldiers to look, and they can describe what they’ve seen back to ye,” Oscar replied, as he took his cup of ale and gulped down a great mouthful.
She frowned, a funny feeling wriggling in her chest. “Are you teasing me?”
“What?” He frowned back. “Nay, I’m nae teasin’ ye. I’ll instruct the soldiers who are to be stationed there to look for plants and that.”
“Oh...” She cut into a steaming potato. “Well, thank you. That would be very helpful.”
He returned his attention to his dinner, eating with haste as if he had somewhere else to be.
After the soaring joy of the gift he’d granted her and the wondrous day she’d spent indulging in her learning, expressing her theories and discussing her interests with a likeminded individual, she was surprised that it wasn’t ending with the same giddy cheer.
She knew she’d antagonized him just a little bit in her study when she’d rolled her eyes at him but, in her defense, he had been unnecessarily intimidating.
Does he think he has something to worry about? She mulled over the question as she chewed her buttery piece of potato. Yet, it seemed absurd. How could he even consider that when she’d thought she’d made it quite obvious, she’d never been more attracted to him?
Between gaining her a tutor and promising to send that letter off to Lilian, there’d been a moment where she’d nearly asked to have some privacy with him.
Then, he’d left, but she had thought of him many times throughout the day. All the ways she wanted to thank him for what he’d done for her, and how she might broach the fact that she was no longer forbidden from touching him.
I’m sure I’m just imagining things. I’ll speak to him later, when we can be alone.
After all, what was on her mind wasn’t exactly suitable dinner conversation.
“What’s the matter with ye, eh?” Ryder asked, pouring two measures of whiskey.
After dinner, the brothers had retired to Oscar’s study. An evening ritual they’d had for years, to discuss whatever was unsuitable for the dining table.
The trouble was, Oscar wasn’t talking; if he started, he knew he’d never be able to stop, and what would come out of his mouth would horrify Ryder.
“Oscar?” Ryder pressed, a concerned frown creasing his brow.
“I’m tired, that’s all,” Oscar replied gruffly, taking one of the glasses of whiskey from him.
Ryder shook his head. “I ken yer mood when ye’re tired, Braither.
I ken yer mood when ye’re hungry. I ken yer mood when ye’re bored, when ye’re annoyed, when ye’re on the brink of snappin’ at someone.
This is none of those. This is somethin’ else, and I’d hear what it is, because as yer braither and yer Man-at-Arms, if there’s somethin’ wrong, I need to ken. ”
Swallowing half the measure in one go, Oscar sat down at his desk and took a breath. A moment later, he was up again, walking to the window to look out on the gardens.
But the flowerbeds and guardian trees reminded him too much of Maddie, forcing him over to the armchair by the fireplace instead. He shifted this way and that, unable to get comfortable, until he was on his feet again, pacing.
“I’m goin’ mad, Ryder,” he hissed, sweeping a hand through his dark hair.
“Aye, I can see that,” Ryder replied with a nervous smile. “What’s wrong with ye, eh?”
“It’s her ,” Oscar said thickly, setting down the whiskey he no longer had a taste for.
Ryder frowned. “Madeleine?”
Just the sound of her name was an exploding canister inside Oscar’s already fractured mind, igniting a whole chain of detonations through his veins. His lungs burned with the force of it, his senses sharpening, his heart pounding harder in his chest, while his head swam.
“I cannae be apart from her and I cannae be close to her,” he said, pressing his palms to his eyes.
“I want to possess her, Ryder, but... it’s causin’ me to become the beast I’ve been tryin’ so hard nae to be.
I considered breakin’ that tutor’s arm today because he shook her hand.
I was jealous, Braither, in a way that cannae be normal.
I was jealous like our faither was jealous.
And I dinnae want to be like that; I dinnae want to suffocate Maddie the way he suffocated our maither. ”
Some of the color drained from Ryder’s face, his eyes widening the whites like a spooked horse.
He hadn’t seen half of what their father had done to their mother.
Oscar had protected him from as much of it as possible, but he still knew what manner of man their father had been: obsessed to the point of insanity.
“Do ye nae think it might just be... frustration?” Ryder suggested, his voice tight.
“Ye used to have a different lass here every other night, but ye havenae been with a lass since Maddie arrived in the middle of the night. Ye havenae even been with Maddie. I cannae speak from experience, but I ken that when ye have a lot of somethin’, then ye’re suddenly deprived of it, it can give ye temporary madness. ”
Oscar whirled around, shooting a fierce glare at his brother. “I dinnae want any other lass, Ryder. There cannae be any other lass now. When I tell ye that she’s in me veins and under me skin and deep in me head, it’s nay exaggeration.”
“I wasnae suggestin’...” Ryder shook his head. “I meant , and I ken it’s a novel idea, but why do ye nae bed yer own wife ?”
Anger bristled through Oscar’s chest in hot sparks. “Ye’ll speak with me wife with more respect than that, laddie. And ye’ll speak to me with more respect an’ all, if ye dinnae want yer ears boxed.”
“Aye, ye are startin’ to sound a little bit like Father,” Ryder replied drily.
The words struck a blow, as they were undoubtedly meant to. Yet, rather than pour fuel onto Oscar’s ire, the sentiment made him freeze, cooling his fury so quickly that he was certain he could feel the steam rising from his skin.
“I respect me sister-in-law,” Ryder continued in a more even tone, apparently realizing the effect he’d had.
“It’s ye I’m teasin, because this is madness.
” He gestured broadly to his brother. “Ye workin’ yerself up into a frenzy because ye want yer wife is what’s mad.
Is that nae the most natural thing in the world? ”
Oscar turned his back on his brother and wandered back to the window, gazing out at the moonlit gardens. The boughs of a bare hawthorn waved in the evening wind, a rabbit freezing on the lawn, ears twitching.
“I want her too much,” he said. “Ye cannae understand unless ye’ve felt what I’m feelin’.”
Ryder sighed heavily. “And I’m sayin’ that maybe ye want her too much because ye havenae lain with her. Once ye do, perhaps ye willnae feel so... intensely about her.”
“Or it could go the other way,” Oscar pointed out.
There’d been an excuse to keep his distance when Maddie’s rule had been in place, but he’d gone and fulfilled his promise without fully thinking of the consequences.
She was probably in her chambers at that very moment, wondering why he’d behaved so strangely at dinner, when he’d been so excited for her earlier. Maybe, she was wondering why he hadn’t come to visit her chambers, now there was no longer a rule to stop them.
“Aye, well, ye willnae ken unless ye try,” Ryder said with a shrug.
“So, ye’ll either have to lie with her and find out, or dinnae lie with her and let it go.
But ye cannae behave like this, else ye might actually go mad, the council will have to get rid of ye, and I dinnae want to be the Laird of Muir, Oscar. ”
Oscar turned, noting the grave worry in his brother’s eyes. “Ye willnae have to be.” He took a breath, striding across the study. “Goodnight, Braither.”
With his hands clenched into fists and his eyes fixed straight ahead, he knew precisely where he needed to go. Ryder was right: one way or another, this had to stop.