The Wolf's Mistress

Alec shifted onto his side, leaning up an elbow, his eyes running over her as she shivered against the wall opposite him.

"He's payin' us a fair amount for our service, and, well," he looked away, pleated the coarse fabric of the blanket for a moment, "there were those who were kind to me when I lived on Gordon lands," he uttered, before saying in off-hand tones. "Is auld Ida still about?"

"Ida?" Isabel said in surprise, scanning his face. He looked mildly interested as he awaited her response but for some reason, she wasn't completely convinced by his blasé enquiry. Ida had doted on Alec, it was true, gifting him with copious oat-cakes and bannocks, a fond mother-hen when he was so in need to mothering. That he still re-called her after all this time surprised and touched her. "Yes, she is..."

"Aye? Good. Braw lass, that one," he shoved his hands behind his head, turning onto his back again, staring idly up at the stained ceiling.

Something in Isabel's chest constricted, warmth filled her numbed body. He cared about old Ida, remembered her after all this time. Why did that shock her? Perhaps because she was so use to being around perfidious men, she thought bitterly, thinking of her late father and her swine of a brother. Alec's easy nature bemused her; he had no reason to enter into hostilities with the Duncans but yet he was. Because he was an honourable man. Oh, she'd known that that from the start, but it was one thing to be honourable to one's own clan -- her brother being an exception, for his motives in seeking aid were self-motivated. He didn't care a whit for his kinsmen. He'd been coddled all his life, lived a life of privilege and yet he'd turned out bitter and hateful, looking out only for himself. But Alec Fraser...

"Are you cold, lass?" the man in question said softly then, bringing her back to herself. "'Tis long been said a body can warm another better than anything else."

Isabel stiffened at the teasing cadence that softened Alec's burr, at the smoky look that entered his sky-blue eyes.

"Let me warm you."

She'd always been frightened of his intimidating, coarse physicality, by his stony façade whenever she'd chance upon him, that the evidence of his humour was bewildering. It made her edgy. This was not the savage chieftain throwing her over his shoulder, demanding she submit, that she had expected -- that the stories had painted him as. He was asking her, inviting her to come to him. Asking for her to honour their bargain. She could turn her face away and he'd not lift a finger to make her yield like many other men would, she knew.

But she'd not. She'd not renegade.

She approached the pallet slowly, staring at Alec's nude upper body, the light from the single-candle highlighting the hard, taut musculature of his torso, highlighting the array of scars, scraps and wounds bisecting his bronzed skin, some pale and faded, some freshly pink.

Pushing her slippers from her cramped feet, she climbed into the bed as she was, feeling foolish, and a chastising cluck sounded in her ear.

"Seeing as ye've come to me wi' only the clothes on yer back, ye'll be regretting getting that, er, fetchin' gown rumpled. Take it off, lass."

"Richard -- Richard thought it would entice you," Isabel murmured, laying stiffly beside him, refusing his softly delivered order.

"Entice, you say? Well, it's certainly eye-catching. But ye've no need of pretty frocks, Isabel Gordon. Ye draw the eye well eno' just as is."

Isabel scoffed at that, even as something in her belly tightened sweetly at the little speech. Isabel said in mocking dryness, "The Frasers are famed for a few things -- poetry isn't one of them. Am I an exception to the rule, my lord, or are you always so...sweet?" she arched a brow, shuffling across the bed until she lay at the very edge, moving onto her side so she could scrutinise her bed partner.

"Sweet?!" tawny brows rose high. Alec Fraser looked quite offended. "Truth be told, lass -- I suppose ye've caught me off my guard. When I pictured myself in bed tonight, I didn't imagine I'd be lying next to Isabel Gordon."

Isabel bit her lip in embarrassed modesty at the wistful inflection to his voice. Of all the women Alec Fraser could - and had - woo into bed, she found herself quite humbled in a purely feminine way, her vanity roused. She thought back to the her brother's words in the hall, but of course, Richard had been laying it on thick when he'd referenced Alec's past interest in her.

"Isabel Gordon," Alec said again, shaking his head slightly. "Has a Fraser ever bedded a Gordon? I cannae recall it, although I've heard a fair few stories about my great grandfather Callum Fraser having a hankering for one of your lot. He was as ugly as a mule's rear-end, mind, so I reckon he didn't have much success. Gordon women have always been known for their looks if naught else, after all."

"Charming. But you know," she mused dryly, eager to draw this out and to delay the inevitable "he could well have thrown her over his shoulder and done away with her."

"Aye, I suppose," Alec shrugged, and Isabel shot him a long look at his perfect seriousness. He met her look squarely, his eyes...wondrous.

Isabel bristled beside him, feeling a fool as she belatedly realising just what that look of his meant, what that wistful bend to his voice earlier had suggested. A notch on his ever increasing bedpost, that's what. No doubt he had worked his way quite successfully through the various clans by now. But she was more annoyed at herself, annoyed by her abused reaction.

"As I recall," she said then, wincing slightly at the prim, clipped retort, "you bedded my cousin a while back. Helen Gordon." She arched a brow at her new protector, daring him to sputter a denial.

But he did no such thing, as she'd have expected from any other male in his position. Instead, he gave her a sheepish look before saying defensively, "I'm not promised, nor married. I made the lass no assurances. She's been wed long eno' to her ancient husband and I wasn't her first foray into extra marital play-"

Isabel threw him a jaundiced look for his casual, practical explanation. "Well then, I don't know why you're so awed about bedding a Gordon, if that's the case. Tell me, do you bleat this same line to all your women? To Annie Macdonald, for example? 'N er thought I'd get up a Macdonald skirts, now lift them up like a good lass.'"

Her poor attempt to mimic his gravely burr saw his lips twitching slightly but before he could say aught, Isabel continued in the same sardonic manner, getting quite enthused, "and I'm sure you said the same to her step daughter Elaine MacDonald right after-"

"That chit?" Alec's roughly handsome face took on an abused look. "I'd not bed her."

"Rumour has it you did," Isabel shrugged lightly, smoothing at the coarse blanket over them. "And I don't know why you're looking so injured -- she's very pretty."

"Aye? Well I like my women with a bit 'o meat on their bones, a bit of softness to cushion me, if you ken what I mean. Aye, I see that ye do," he mocked softly, reading her embarrassment well, even in the low lightning. "And yer wrong - I never bedded yer cousin. We, er, never got that far, at least."

"Oh, I see," Isabel nodded after a moment, folding her hands primly over the abrasive blanket. "Then I'll be your first Gordon after all."

"Now, lass," Alec frowned then, shifting uncomfortably on the pallet, his normally steady, easy expression dropping, uncharacteristic awkwardness claiming him. "I didn't mean it like that-"

"I'm sure you didn't," she returned kindly and his frown become a scowl, his forehead furrowing, lowering,

"You'll not be just a conquest to me, Isabel Gordon," he said, softly, correctly guessing at her veiled ire. "I'll not crow about bedding ye - seeing as how everyone will know it, it'd be pointless anyhow," he added thoughtfully, before continuing in the same soft, sober tone. "Ye've no need to fear that from me, lass."

Alec's hand landed heavily on her covered hip beneath the blanket at the close of his little speech that had warmed and caught at her hard heart more precisely than any syrupy love words ever could have.

For a long moment, Alec Fraser seemed content to stroke her hip, and when Isabel chanced a shy, nervous glance his way, it was to see his eyes closed, his mouth slightly parted, his breaths gentle.

Why, he's fallen asleep, she thought in surprised disbelief.

Yet though there was relief for this reprieve, there was also something suspiciously similar to disappointment. She shrugged the traitorous feeling away, shamed and annoyed at herself.

Despite her avowals to rest, mindful of how trying the following day would be for her, she found herself looking across, staring at his relaxed face, at the strong, square and slightly cleft chin, at his slackened jaw. Oh, but he was beautiful - more beautiful than a man had any right to be, especially one so obviously uncaring of his appearance if his overlong tangle of sun bleached hair was anything to go by, his weather beaten, scarred face -- his untidy, careworn clothing.

None of these things detracted from his attraction, and were that not enough, his easy manner, his honourable core, would have won her round just the same. She had sorely misjudged him those few times she'd seen him since him since they'd both entered into adulthood. He was not cold and unfeeling.

Devastating, she thought then.

Help, she closed her eyes, turned her face to the wall. Let me not soften towards him.

***