Page 12 of Her Highlander’s Darkest Temptation (Highlanders of Cadney #14)
CHAPTER EIGHT
D onall watched Lydia thinking, worrying that soft, rose-petal lip between her teeth as she considered his terms.
He wasn’t sure why he’d suggested the wager, or those terms. All he was certain of was what he’d seen in her eyes—she’d come to the table already planning to find a way to lose the game, in spite of his earlier words about his opinion on such victories.
“Well lass?”
Lydia blushed, the rose hue becoming against her pale skin, her eyes fixed on the board as though it could answer all her questions for her. Finally, she nodded. “If you insist, my laird.”
“I dae.” Donall smiled, refilled his tankard, and gestured for her to take the first move.
Lydia frowned in concentration, then moved a queen-side pawn. Donall responded in kind, and the game began in earnest.
The game was different from the beginning, and with every successive move, Donall’s interest grew. Lydia wasn’t an aggressive player - she played more defensively, only attacking when she could incur minimal losses - but she was a confident player, and an adept one.
She moved her pieces with little hesitation, and evaded the first pincer trap he set for her with ease, taking a pawn and almost capturing one of his knights in the process. Her counter trap almost caught his king-side bishop, and a secondary gambit he didn’t see took his queen-side knight.
A dozen moves later, Donall was certain of his conclusion—Lydia was no ordinary maid, not even an ordinary lady’s maid. Her skill at chess was far beyond what he might have expected from a servant, who would have limited time to indulge in learning the game, much less polishing their skills.
At best, he would have expected her to have a similar skill to Ewan’s. Instead, she played at a level that could likely defeat Alex, and might be a close match for him. It was intriguing, and it left him debating what to do.
He could win—he was certain of that. Win, claim his wish and claim his answers, if he so desired.
Or…
Lydia shifted her queen to take a castle, and in that moment, he saw the fork in the road, as the game split down two branching paths toward the endgame.
If he moved his queen, he would stumble into the edge of a trap, and likely be checked in half-a-dozen moves.
If he shifted his king, he could build a defense that would block her, then launch a counter-attack that would put her in check in seven moves or less.
Claim a victory and a wish, or let it go and see how she might use them in turn?
For a moment, he wavered, then his hand moved, guided by some instinct and the long-banished emotions Lydia evoked in him, and moved the queen.
Lydia caught him, as he’d known she would. He responded, and she paused, her cheeks blooming the scarlet color of a rose before she hesitantly reached out to move her piece into position.
Donall responded, played through the next two moves, then surrendered to the inevitable and tipped his king over with a quick, easy gesture.
To his surprise, the pang of dull anger or offended pride he’d expected to feel was absent, buried under a feeling of anticipation.
“It seems, lass, tha’ the wish is yers.”
Lydia nodded, her expression a blend of confusion and trepidation. “I scarcely know what I would wish for…”
Donall raised an eyebrow in surprise. He stood and stretched. “Ye dinnae need tae use it taenight.”
He moved to the council table and located ink and a scrap of paper, and wrote in quick penstrokes ‘One wish, tae redeem tae Laird Donall Ranald’ .
He blew on the ink to dry it, then folded the paper and handed it to the lass.
“Give me this when ye want tae redeem yer wish. If I can fulfill it, an’ if it daesnae harm anyone, then I’ll grant it fer ye. ”
“Thank you, my laird.” She bowed her head. “I shall consider most carefully. However, if there is nothing else… the dishes…”
“Go on. Ye’re dismissed.” He waved her away and went to the fire, watching out of the corner of his eye as Lydia gathered the tankards and flagons with careful movements and carried them away.
One wish . He still had no idea why he’d chosen that wager, or why he wished to honor.
He only knew one thing—Lydia the serving maid was a mystery and a wonder, and he was determined to learn everything he could about her.
Including what a lass with such a shrouded past and entrancing demeanor might wish for.
A wish. Lydia’s cheeks burned hotter than hearth flames, as she carried the flagons and tankards to the kitchen to be washed.
A wish. Lord Ranald gave me a wish, and I could not think how to use it.
I am a fool - I could easily have asked for something innocuous, something that any servant might desire, like some time for myself, or new clothing.
I might even have used it to request a change of duties, to assist the healer. Instead, I said nothing.
Ironic, when I would not even be in this mess, had I managed to hold my tongue earlier in the evening.
In truth, Lydia had no idea why she had accepted the laird’s wager, and even less why she’d made the effort to win the game.
She had seen the mistake he had made, and she could have countered it with a mistake of her own.
Instead, she’d made exactly the series of moves that one might expect, and claimed a victory that no proper serving maid could ever have managed.
She only knew that, the moment Laird Ranald had asked her what she would wish for, she’d found herself struck dumb, unable to voice any of the wishes that crowded her thoughts.
I wish you would ask me no more questions, and I could stay hidden among your servants for the rest of my days.
I wish I could tell you the truth, and that you would accept me, protect me, and perhaps come to care for me.
I wish I could call you Donall, and see you look at me with the same relaxation and calm that you do when your friend and second-in-command call you by that name.
I wish I could have the courage, and the permission, to touch you - and perhaps more, folly though I know it is to even contemplate such things.
I wish you would touch me - in tenderness, rather than duty, and I could come to know what your hands feel like when they offer comfort, kindness, or affection.
I wish you were the man my uncle had chosen for my husband, instead of Rory Cameron.
So many wishes, and she knew quite well she could ask for none of them. To even think of them was foolishness. To have spoken any of them aloud would have been to destroy her own efforts at hiding and, in all likelihood, would have seen her banished from Ranald Keep, or thrown in the dungeons.
Even if she had dared to speak one of her wishes aloud and not been dismissed, she would only have placed herself in a precarious position, and possibly endangered all of Clan Ranald.
That was something she could not and would not do.
It was one thing to shelter with the clan for a brief time while she recovered from her injury and learned the skills she required.
It was another to knowingly drag Clan Ranald and Laird Donall Ranald into the twisted mess between her and Rory Cameron.
The best thing to do would be to decide on a simple wish, something easy to fulfill that a normal servant might want. She might ask Maisie, under the guise of an idle question, for suggestions. Then she would redeem it, and think no more on the matter.
Lydia delivered the dishes to the kitchens and, with the help of a scullery maid, soon had them scrubbed and set aside to dry.
From there, she made her way to the bathing chamber and drew herself a bath - a task she did know how to perform, even if carrying the buckets of steaming water to fill the tub was wearying.
She bathed quickly and changed into the nightdress Evelyn had given her the night before, then returned to the room she shared with Maisie.
The other servant was nowhere to be seen, probably attending to duties Lydia still didn’t know she had, or perhaps taking some time to relax with her fellow servants.
She might even be reporting to Steward Corvin, telling him about Lydia’s performance. Had she been less weary, Lydia might been concerned about what the younger woman would say.
For now, however, Lydia was achingly tired, and more than willing to collapse into her rush-filled bedding with a sigh.
And if her thoughts as she slipped toward sleep were of Laird Ranald, his handsome face creased in thought and the firelight dancing across his strong, sure hands as he moved a chess piece and smiled challengingly at her across the board…
and those same hands then reached out to touch her, the heat of him close and that intense gaze entirely focused on her…
making her heart skip a beat as he touched her with that same sure, easy, confidence… it was her dream and for her only.