He laughed so hard, he choked.
“What?” Maggie asked, wondering what had struck him so amusing.
He sobered to a degree. “I’m thinking, you’ve always managed to resist it.”
“That’s because you’ve never used it with me. To you, I might as well be a stump.”
He truly looked stricken by her words. A deep frown furrowed his brows. “I beg your pardon?”
“It’s true.” Her throat was tight as she spilled out her observations to him. “You look at other women like you can already feel them in your arms, but when it comes to me, you look right past me. ‘Tis an awful habit that has always hurt my feelings.”
“Is that why you bit me when you were eleven?”
Shut up, Maggie.
But she didn’t listen. Before she could stop herself or think better of it, the truth came spilling out. “Aye. All I ever wanted was for you to see me. Just once.”
She saw him pause and reflect on her words. When he looked back at her, his gaze was probing. Disturbing. “Perhaps I have misjudged you, but I wonder if you’re not as guilty of that as I am.”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you ever really looked at me and seen me? Or have you been as the others and all you’ve ever really seen are my looks? Because I guarantee it wasn’t my personality you were ogling a minute ago, but rather my posterior.”
Maggie opened her mouth in shock, then closed it hurriedly. Indignation ripped through her. How dare he accuse her of something so crass. She wasn’t one of those shallow maids to have her head turned by simple handsomeness. “That’s absurd!”
“Is it? If you know me so well, then tell me my favorite color?”
“Green,” she answered without hesitation. “Dark green. The same color as your mother’s eyes. The same dark green you have in most of the plaids you choose to wear.”
By the look on his face, she could tell her answer took him completely by surprise. He couldn’t believe she knew that about him.
But that wasn’t all she knew. And before she could stop herself, she rattled off more things she knew about him. “Your favorite foods are roasted venison with stewed cabbage and elderberry tarts. You drink dark ale around other men, but in truth, you prefer mulled wine. When you’re at home, you always have a cup of warm milk sprinkled with cinnamon before you go to bed. Your favorite tale is Dierdre of the Sorrows, and though you’d never admit it, and you try to look disinterested when they play, you like to hear bards sing.”
He looked completely baffled by her admission. “How do you know all that?”
“Because I’ve loved you all my life.”
Twelve
Braden didn’t know which of them was more stunned by her confession. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Maggie looked terrified.
He felt terrified.
Indeed, he couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, as he stared at her while her words tore through him.
Eternity seemed to pass as they stood just a foot apart with her words hanging like a pall between them.
“Nay,” he said at last. “You can’t love me.”
“Why not?” she asked, her voice filled with the same pain he saw reflected in her amber eyes.
“Because you can’t.”
Before she could move, he turned about and left the stable in search of a way to cope with the news she had given him.
But all he could focus on was the raw agony tearing through his soul. He didn’t want her to love him. He didn’t want any woman to love him, at least not for any longer than an hour or two.
Dear saints, how had this happened?
