Saidh blinked at that question, and forced her eyes back up to his face. The man had stopped walking and now eyed her with amusement, his hands disappearing into the water to prop on his hips below the surface. Shifting a bit in the saddle, she gave what she hoped was an indifferent shrug. “I’ve seven brothers. It’s nothing I ha’e no’ seen before.”
Which was true, she assured herself. Although, truth be told, she’d never been as interested in seeing what lay beneath the water when it had come to her brothers. And she’d never found herself as breathless as one of those simpering ladies she detested just at the sight of one of their chests.
“I’m no’ yer brother,” the MacDonnell said dryly. “And a lady would turn her back.”
“I’m no’ a lady,” Saidh responded without thinking, and then clucked under her tongue as she heard her own words and quickly dismounted and turned her back to the lake. It nearly killed her to remain that way, though, as she heard the splashing of water and movement behind her. Saidh so wanted to turn and take a peek at the man in all his glory as he finished coming out of the lake.
“Which is so unladylike,” she lectured herself under her breath. Her mother would be most disappointed in her, she knew.
“What is so unladylike?”
Saidh stiffened at the amused question from very close behind her. She instinctively started to turn, but her mother’s voice in her head made her stop. Sighing, Saidh shrugged in a way she hoped appeared nonchalant, and confessed, “I am. Or so me mother always told me.” Wry amusement filling her voice now, she admitted, “I fear being raised with so many brothers made me less o’ a lady than I should be. Me mother did her best to rein me in, but me father and brothers were o’ little help in the endeavor and in the end . . .” She shrugged. “She was fighting a losing battle.”
“Ye seem ladylike enough to me.”
The voice had moved away again and she could hear the rustle of material. He had no doubt laid out his plaid on the ground and was now crouched beside it, pleating the cloth in preparation of donning it. At least that was her guess, and she imagined him in her mind’s eye doing so, the rising sun glinting off his wide back. Shaking her head to remove the image, she cleared her throat and said, “I fear ye’ll no’ say that, once ye’ve heard me cursing like a warrior.”
“Cursing?” he asked, sounding startled at the very suggestion.
Saidh grimaced, but nodded. “Aye. ’Tis a bad habit I learned from me brothers. And they ha’e taught me the most foul curses.”
A sudden chuckle nearly had her turning again, but again she caught herself. Lifting her chin defiantly, she added, “I also wear English braies under me gowns so that I can ride astride. I ken no ladies who do that.”
“English braies?” This time he sounded rather bemused.
Saidh nodded and then caught a bit of her gown in hand to lift it to knee level and reveal the bottom of the braies she wore beneath.
“Where the devil did ye come up with that idea?” he asked with what might have been shock.
“It was me mother’s idea,” Saidh admitted as she let the gown drop back into place. “First she tried to stop me from riding astride and running about, climbing trees and rocks with me brothers, but when that did no’ work, she had the braies made for me.”
“Yer mother sounds a clever woman,” he decided, still sounding amused.
“Aye, she was,” Saidh said sadly. “As a child, I always feared I was a great disappointment to her because o’ me wild ways. But one day me da sat me down and told me that me ma had been just as wild when she was younger. That she’d worn braies under her own gowns, and had handled a sword like a warrior right up until I was born. He said I’d come by it naturally. When I asked why then she was so desperate to make a lady o’ me, he said that ’twas because she feared there were few men like him who would be happy with such a woman to wife. That most lairds expected a lady, and so she’d curbed her own wildness to try to teach me to be the lady she knew everyone expected.”
Silence fell when she stopped talking, and Saidh had to wonder why she’d even said so much to this man. He was a stranger, yet she was confessing things she’d not even told Murine, Joan and Edith, who were dear friends of hers.
“And the sword?”
Saidh stiffened when those words were almost whispered by her ear. He was behind her now, the heat of his chest warming her back and his hand now resting at her waist, just above her sheathed sword.
“I—” She paused and cleared her throat when that one word came out on a husky breath, and then tried again. “Me oldest brother, Aulay, had the blacksmith make it fer me birthday, years ago,” she confessed and then grinned and added, “He said he got tired o’ me brothers complaining that I’d taken their swords.”
That brought a chuckle from the man and his breath stirred the back of her hair. Disturbed by his closeness, she moved away and turned, giving him a wide berth and avoiding looking at him as she walked to the water’s edge.
“Is the bottom dirt or slippery stone?” she asked abruptly, peering at the dark surface of the lake.
“Dirt with small pebbles,” he answered, his voice moving closer again. “It is no’ slippery at all.”
“Does the water drop off of a sudden or gradually deepen?”
“There are no sudden drops that I ha’e yet found,” he responded and then asked, “Thinking o’ swimming here?”
Saidh considered the possibility. It wasn’t why she’d asked her questions, but the idea of stripping off her clothes and sinking into that cool, embracing water did sound tempting.
“Or trying to sort out if Allen drowned accidentally or was killed?”
That question made her whirl with dismay. “I’m quite sure Fenella did no’ drown Allen.”
“So am I.”
Saidh blinked in surprise and then tilted her head. “Really?”