“A messenger delivered it while ye were on patrol,” she told him. “Me parents daenae want our betrothal to go through. They wantme to return home and follow the decree, and if I daenae abide by their request, they will come take me themselves.”
“Is that all?” Leo laughed merrily, running his gaze over the letter and then handing it back to her as though it was only a joke. “Let them try.”
“But Leo, they daenae think our betrothal will clear me father’s debts. They daenae believe ye will follow through on a promise like that.”
She made to take a step closer, then stalled as if she had hit an invisible wall. Leo watched her in bemused confusion, but her concern was penetrating through his defenses, digging into his skin.
A thought he was attempting to contain made itself clear.
Why try to stop her? This arrangement is more trouble than it’s worth.
As Beatrice shifted her weight from side to side, Leo stepped towards her and put his hands on her shoulders. He held her firm, and she went still, though he could feel her trembling under his touch.
“I can freeze yer father’s debts,” he said. “I have the authority to do that, and I can use it if it keeps ye here with me.”
Beatrice’s face lifted, and her eyes locked onto his. “With ye?”
“If it can keep ye here for yer part of our arrangement.” Leo’s tongue had grown heavy and clumsy.
Words were slipping from his mind and out of his mouth against his will and judgement, an unfamiliar experience for Laird MacSween.
“What good does this do ye?” Beatrice asked.
Leo racked his brain for a reason she’d believe. “I agreed to the arrangement for me own reasons too, and ye ken it. But I have agreed to yer conditions as well, and I am a man of me word.”
Beatrice sighed and pushed away from him, looking as if the room was closing in on her. He watched her eyes flit anxiously, unable to settle on one thing. She kept swallowing past a lump in her throat that he knew was never going to disappear.
The lass doesnae seem to understand that people daenae defy me. She doesnae ken what it means to have one’s authority respected.
“Me father’s debts are more than ye might ken, Leo,” she finally said, lifting a hand to her cheek. It made her look ashamed, as if she were confessing an unforgivable sin. “They may be bigger than even ye can imagine.”
“Try me.”
Her breathing was so ragged, but Leo could barely hear it over the blood pounding in his ears. A flush had spread across her face and throat, coloring the pale expanse of her décolletage. He couldn’t help but notice the swell of her breasts as she tried to calm herself to no avail.
“It wasnae right to bring ye into this,” she mumbled. “It was foolish of me to come here. I should go back home, accept me fate and be done with it.”
In a move so fast that Leo surprised himself, he took Beatrice’s hands in his, holding her fast before him.
“Our agreement has been made, lass,” he reminded her, meaning to speak gently although it came out as a growl. “Ye made yer choice when ye came here, and I made mine. We shallnae abandon our commitments like this over yer parents’ foolishness.”
“But what about the letter from me parents?”
Leo drew her closer still.
“A matter of debt is nay worry for me,” he said. “I will handle it.”
“Will ye? Can ye?” Beatrice asked him, wide-eyed and incredulous as though scarcely able to believe it.
“Aye,” he assured her. “I can.”
Leo could see a small pulse thrumming fast and strong in her neck. Did her heart beat from fear at her parents’ threats, or from excitement at his touch? He wanted it to be only the latter, but suspected it was both.
“Leo,” Beatrice breathed, looking up into his face helplessly. “I daenae ken what is happenin' to me.”
“I do, lass,” he answered, his voice now very ragged at the edges as one of his hands went to her waist and the other up to stroke back a lock of auburn hair from her face. “Ye want me to kiss ye.”
“I…Oh!”
