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“You mustn’t stab it. Hold it sideways. ”
Her voice was gentle, and it calmed him. Not a wee spy, he thought, perhaps a trainer of wild creatures. He did as she’d told him, and tilted his hand.
“Yes. That’s the way. ” He heard the smile in her voice, and a foreign feeling of warmth flickered deep in his icy heart. “Now write your first letter. A, for ‘Aidan. ’ ”
He began the letter, but pressed too hard, and the quill squeaked along the parchment. His muscles flinched, ready to crumple the sheet and quit this nonsense. He couldn’t form a simple, childish letter, and it shamed him. But then he felt the barest touch on his forearm.
“Lightly,” she urged. “You’re too strong. ”
Too strong. Like a brute was too strong, or an ox. He looked up, a quip ready on his lips, but saw she’d turned nearly purple with embarrassment. Something about her words had made her self-conscious. Such a fascinating, peculiar bird of a girl.
His own shame vanished, and he brought his attention back to the paper. “Like this?” he asked, wanting to put her at her ease.
“Yes, but don’t press down. Just touch it lightly. A gentle touch for each stroke is what you need. ”
His mind went to a place decidedly more sexual than this bit of book learning warranted, and he suppressed a smile, keeping himself intent on the paper before him.
Elspeth mistook his silence for confusion. “Perhaps if you held it thusly. ” She brought her hand to his to adjust his fingers on the quill, her movements as tentative as a frightened cat.
He’d have thought her hands would be clammy, but they were warm, their touch soft and light. He felt a bolt of lightning shoot up his spine. A gentle touch from an innocent was something far outside the realm of his experience. He relaxed his hand, letting her mold his grip, savoring the feel of those delicate fingers on his.
As she positioned his hand, he attuned himself to her utterly. Her breaths came evenly, and he imagined he felt each brush against his skin. The barest scent wafted up to him. Nothing like his mother’s rose water, nor the cloying ambergris of elegant plantation wives. Elspeth smelled sweet and fresh, like freshly turned earth and grass.
Her long, thin fingers mesmerized him, so pale against his tanned and callused skin. He dared not look higher than her wrist, a peek of it visible at the cuff of her sleeve. She was so fragile, with bones like a graceful seabird.
He imagined she’d never touched a man so. Perhaps it meant she was no longer nervous. Perhaps he had put her at her ease.
He needed to say something to fill the quiet, but he found he was speechless. He, whose blithe words had seduced some of the most exotic women in the world, found himself at a loss.
She sat so close to him, and yet he couldn’t picture her eyes. What color were they? He thought they were blue, but what else would he see there? Flecks of green? Of violet? He needed to find out. He risked a glance, caught her gaze.
And saw terror there.
Anger swamped him, sudden and blinding. This Elspeth was as skittish as a calf surrounded by a pack of wolves.
He knew he was different from other men. He knew he didn’t belong. But was he so coarse? Was he such a threat?
Aidan snatched his hand away. “We’re done here. ”
He stormed from the room and didn’t look back.
Chapter 6
Wrenching her body upright, Elspeth arched back to ease the knot at the base of her spine. She’d hauled bucket after bucket of Angus’s raw oats to feed the sheep, and the labor was beginning to take its toll.
She let herself take a moment. Despite the frustration over her father’s lack of business sense, despite the dirt that seemed forever to cling at her skirts and beneath her nails, she found tending the sheep to be a more pleasant chore than she’d have believed. At least as pleasant as minding their few cattle had been, and some bit easier too. They were serene creatures, and more social than the cows, butting their heads against her legs for attention, vying for handfuls of grain.
She dusted off then grew thoughtful, contemplating her hands, rubbing them, wiping the dirt from her palms. And remembering.
She’d touched him with those fingers.
Never had she touched a man’s hand before. Never had she touched a man, period. At least one who wasn’t her father.
It had only taken a moment to adjust Aidan’s fingers on the quill, but still she’d lingered, lost to thoughts of what those hands might have seen. The
y’d likely harvested sugarcane, and climbed ship’s rigging. But had they also punched men? Touched women? Touched himself?
A sultry warmth bloomed in her belly, and she glanced side to side, to ensure that nobody was there to witness such wicked musings.
