She stood there dripping and shivering, while the river rushed on as though nothing had happened. Margaret looked at Domhnall then, but she didn’t look at the Iron Laird of the SeaLochs, but at the man who had thrown himself into freezing water without a thought for rank or consequence.
“Thank ye,” she said quietly.
He shook his head at once. “It is naething.”
Her words came sharp and insistent. “It is very much something. Ye didnae hesitate.”
His gaze held hers. “I did what was required.”
“That is nae the same,” Margaret replied. Her voice trembled, whether from cold or feeling she could not tell. “Nay one has ever?—”
She stopped herself, feeling her breath catching.
Domhnall did not press her to finish. When he spoke, it was with calm and absolute certainty. “Those who ken the difference between right and wrong dinnae pause tae weigh it.”
The simplicity of it left her momentarily without reply. Only then did his eyes narrow, and his attention shift focus. He took in the way her shoulders shook despite the cloak, and then the bluish cast creeping into her fingers.
“Ye’re freezing,” he pointed out.
“I am all right,” she lied.
“Nay” he said, already turning toward the horses. “Ye are nae.”
He reached his saddle packs and unfastened one swiftly. “I have spare garments,” he continued over his shoulder. “Dry. They will be large on ye, but warm.”
Margaret watched him with her body still trembling and her heart still racing. The cold was biting deep, but deeper down, her heart was unable to conform his reputation to his actions, for this was care, offered without condition.
“Thank ye,” she said. “But I need privacy tae change.”
Domhnall’s gaze swept the riverbank again before returning to her. “Nae far,” he said. “This ground isnae safe, nae after a fall like that.”
“I am nae proposing tae vanish intae the hills,” she replied. “Only tae spare us both impropriety.”
His mouth twitched into something that was almost a smile, though he did not grant her the satisfaction of seeing it fully.
“Ye may change,” he told her, gesturing with his head, “over there.”
“There?” She glanced pointedly at the open bank and the men moving at a distance but not nearly far enough to suit her sensibilities.
“I will turn away,” he promised.
Margaret narrowed her eyes. “That is nae enough.”
“Perhaps nae,” he agreed calmly. “But it is what ye will have.”
She should have argued further. Instead, she accepted the bundle of garments he handed her and moved a few paces aside, half-shielded by a low rise and the curve of a boulder. He stepped back, turning his shoulders away from her…mostly.
She could feel him there. The awareness was maddening.
As she struggled out of her soaked gown, the cold bit sharply, but it was the warmth of the garments in her hands that caught her attention. They smelled of leather and clean wool, but also of salt and smoke andhim. The scent settled against her skin as she pulled on the shirt, which was far too large, and the sleeves swallowed her hands.
Her breath caught despite herself.
“Ye may turn farther away,” she told him.
“Iamturned away,” Domhnall replied.
She glanced up. He stood with his back to her, still just mostly. One shoulder was angled just enough that she could see the sharp line of his jaw, and the way his gaze dipped for a heartbeat before snapping back to the horizon.
