Page 14 of Highlander’s Sloth

“Hie ye back to town and make merry with yer ladies there. I’ll have none o’ ye!” She spat the words out at him.

Callum stopped shaking his bitten hand and stared at his wife. “What d’ye mean? I have nay ladies in town, ye viper! I have been catching up talking with me auld schoolboy friends before they head out back to their homes!”

Kirsty was not placated by this declaration. “A likely faradiddle,” she said. “Whoever heard of a groom rushing off to do that?”

Callum continued to shake his hand, saying, “And how much experience d’ye have with grooms who’ve lived for the last ten years in Paris, ye vixen! Maybe ‘tis I who should question yer virtue?”

She picked up a brocade cushion and began to smack him around the head with it. He warded off the blows and was finally able to bring the assault to an end by pinning her arms above her head and straddling her.

“Be at peace, Kirsty. There is no other woman, I promise ye. I ken ye dinnae understand much about men, but...if I had come from a brothel or another woman’s bedchamber now, I would no’ be creeping into yer bed upon me return.”

She stopped bucking underneath him, and he climbed off and lay beside her.

“It has been uncommonly boring here without ye, Cal,” she said in a small voice, “and I have had naught to do but twiddle me thumbs.”

“Come now, dearest,” he said in his most conciliatory tone, “it cannae be that bad. What about the mare I bought ye? Could ye no’ take the wee pony out onto the moors for a gallop?”

Kirsty sat up. “Ye bought me a mare! Why did no one tell me? How lovely!”

Seizing his chance, Callum pulled his wife down beside him, saying, “No’ as lovely as ye are, my darling,” and he began to nuzzle her neck.

She pulled away. “Nay, mister. No horse is enough to make me forgive ye for leaving me here with naught to do but drink orgeat with yer mither. I’m no’ yers for the asking whenever ye want to scratch that itch! If ye want to...do that thing with me again, ye’re going to have to make it up to me. Ye can start tomorrow by showing me around the distilleries. And when ye’ve spent as much time with me as ye have with yer auld school friends, then maybe I’ll let ye back into me bed. Now, go!”

Callum, much chastened by Kirsty’s strictures, gave her hand a kiss, and when he saw she was resolute, bid her a very good night and went back to his bedchamber, taking his candlestick with him.

It would have brought him much comfort to know that it had taken all of Kirsty’s willpower to send him away, and after she heard the dressing room door click back into place, she had flung her face into her pillow and bitten the corner hard.