One dark brow lifted. “Then what do we need to be?”
Was he closer than before? His body heat was scalding her entire front. She tugged at the collar of her shirtwaist. “Loud.”
She pushed herself up until she was sitting on the cabinet, and it creaked under her weight. As an added benefit, she’d created space between them, and the tightness in her lungs dissipated a bit. She rocked back and forth, and the creaking sound returned, louder this time.Perfect.“Help me shake the cabinet.”
He scrubbed his hand down his face, then rubbed his palms on his trousers. “Fine, but hurry up.”
“Are you nervous?”
The visible shudder that ran down his spine belied the brisk shake of his head. “I dinnae like confined spaces.”
Blast.“Then we’ll leave,” she said as she slid off the cabinet, putting her body in close proximity to his again.Double blast.
“No, ye want this, and—”
“You’re helping me, and that will be suffering enough.” She reached for the doorknob and gave it a sharp tug.
“It’s no’ suffering withye—”
She pulled the doorknob again, eager to give him some relief when the unthinkable happened.Triple blast.
“What’s wrong?” Callum asked when she fell silent.
She lifted the knob, now detached from the door. “We may be here for a while.”
Callum wiped the sweat from his palms for what must have been the hundredth time and turned in a circle once more.
“Why are you doing that?” Violet sat perched on the cabinet, watching him warily.
“I pace when I’m anxious.”
“You’re not pacing, you’re spinning around like a top or a very grumpy, large child.”
“I’m no’ grumpy.”
“You just growled at me.”
He clenched his jaw. “I’m grumpy because ye picked the one hallway in the entire house where everyone is hard of hearing.”
She winced. “I don’t understand it. Someone should have heard us shouting, a maid or—”
He groaned as another wave of panic tugged at his gut, threatening to send him to his knees.
Assuming he could get to his knees without bashing his head into a shelf.
He forced his attention to his breathing, but the steady pattern of inhales and exhales, the ones that propelledhim while swimming and reassured him he wasalive, wouldn’t come, refused to settle into place, and he was scrambling, reaching for a surface that wasn’t there—
A soft hand pressed to his chest over his heart. “Callum, listen to me. You’re safe.”
Her voice pushed against his sharp edges, dulling the panic but not breaking through. His hands flexed and clenched at his sides, again and again, until her free hand took his and he felt something warm, solid, secure.
“I feel your heart, and you can feel mine now. Focus on that,” she murmured, so calm, like the surface of the Moray Firth of his childhood at dawn, before the large ships left the water choppy and gray. His mind stilled enough to itemize the sensations below his palm, the cool silk of her blouse, the slippery ribbon trim under his thumb, the warmth of her chest below the fabric. The steady thrum of her heart.
“What can you feel?” she whispered.
“Your dress,” he replied without thinking. Thank god she wasn’t making him think.
“Good. What do you smell?”
