Into the Dreaming

Page 16

In the meantime, Jane was learning to cook over the open fire in the great hall. Each afternoon the women taught her a new dish. Unfortunately, each evening, she ate it with a man who refused to eat anything but hard bread, no matter how she tried to tempt him.
Late into the twilight hours, Jane scribbled busily away before the fire, sometimes making notes, sometimes working on her manuscript, all the while peeking at Aedan over her papers and writing the future she hoped to have with him. She liked the laborious ritual of using quill and ink, the flames in the open hearth licking at her slippered toes, the hum of crickets and soft hooting of owls. She relished the complete absence of tires screeching, car alarms pealing, and planes flying overhead. In all her life, she'd never experienced such absolute, awe-inspiring stillness.
By the end of the first week of renovations, she'd begun to draw hope from Aedan's bewildered silence. Although he refused to speak to her, day by day, he participated a bit more in the repairs to the estate. And day by day, he seemed a bit less forbidding. No longer did she see disdain and loathing in his gaze, but confusion and… uncertainty? As if he didn't understand his place and how he fit into the grand scheme of things.
Jane intended to use her month as wisely as possible. She learned in her psychology courses at Purdue that attacking "amnesia" head-on could drive the person deeper into denial, even induce catatonia. So after much hard thought, she'd decided to give Aedan two weeks of absolutely no pressure, other than acclimating to his new environment. Two weeks of working, of being silently companionable, of not touching him as she so longed to do, despite the misery of being with him but forbidden to demonstrate her love and affection.
After those two weeks, she promised herself the seduction would begin. No more baths in Kyleakin in one of the village women's homes. She would begin bathing before the fire in the hall. No more proper gowns in the evening. She would wear lower bodices and higher hems.
And so, Jane bided her time, cuddled with Sexpot in the luxurious bed, and dreamed about the night when Aedan would lay beside her and speak her name in those husky tones that promised lovemaking to make a girl's toes curl.
Aedan stood on the recently repaired front steps of the castle and stretched his arms above his head, easing the tightness in his back. The night sky was streaked with purple. Stars twinkled above the treetops, and a crescent moon silvered the lawn. Every muscle in his body was sore from toting heavy stones from a nearby quarry to the castle.
Although he'd learned to avoid pain in the land of shadows, the current aches in his body were a strangely pleasurable sensation. He'd refused to participate in the repairs at first, withholding himself in silent and aloof censure, but much to his surprise, as he'd watched the village men work, he'd begun to hanker to lift, carry, and patch. His hands had itched to get dirty, and his mind had been eager to redesign parts of the keep that had been inefficiently, and in places, hazardously constructed.
Pondering the three commands his king had given, he'd concluded there was nothing to prevent him from passing time more quickly by working.
When on the third day he'd silently joined the men, they'd worked with twice the vigor and smiled and jested more frequently. They asked his opinion on many things, leading him to discover with some surprise that he had opinions, and, further, that they seemed sound. They accepted him with minimal fuss, although they touched him with disconcerting frequency, clapping him on the shoulder and patting his arm.
Because they weren't females, he deemed it acceptable.
When they asked the occasional question, he evaded. He completely ignored the lass who doggedly remained in the castle, leaving only to traipse off to the village, from whence she returned clean and slightly damp.
And fragrant smelling. And warm and soft and sweet looking.
Sometimes, merely gazing upon her made him hurt inside.
Vengeance shook his head, as if to shake thoughts of her right out of it. With each passing day, things seemed different. The sky no longer seemed too brilliant to behold, the air no longer too stifling to breathe. He'd begun to anticipate working each day, because in the gloaming he could stand back and look at something—a wall recently shored up, steps re-laid, a roof repaired, an interior hearth redesigned—and know it was his doing. He liked the feeling of laboring and rued that his king might deem it a flaw in his character, unsuitable for an exalted being.
And each day, when his thoughts turned toward his king, they were more often than not resentful thoughts. His king might not have bothered to inform him of his purpose at Dun Haakon, but the humans were more than willing to offer him ample purpose.