God forgive me, I wanted me own enemy to stay. What in the world is happenin’ to me?
CHAPTER 16
It was longpast midnight when Ragnall climbed the stairs to his chamber for the second time that night, having drunk precisely enough to be a fool and nowhere near enough to forget why he was one.
He had thought she would be asleep. He had hoped for it, in the cowardly corner of him, because a sleeping wife was a wife he could lie down beside and not lose his mind over.
She was not asleep.
She lay on her side, facing away from the door, her red hair spilling across his pillow, with the blankets pulled up to her chin. She breathed steadily and deliberately, having heard the latch lift and immediately flung herself down to feign sleep. The tension in her bare shoulder was visible, and he could hear her heart pounding.
He ought to have let her keep up the pretense.
“Ye’re a poor liar, wife,” he said, pulling his shirt over his head, “for a woman with such a wicked tongue on her. Yer breathin’ gives ye clean away.”
A pause. Then, with great dignity, she said into the pillow, “I cannae sleep.”
“I noticed.” He lay down on his own side of the great bed, on his back, a careful foot of cold linen left between them, and laced his hands behind his head and stared up into the dark. “It’s been a long day.”
She turned over. He felt the bed shift, felt her settle to face him, and did not trust himself to look.
“Should we nae…” she trailed off. “I daenae ken. Get to ken each other? We’re wed. It seems we ought at least to be acquainted.”
“I thought,” Ragnall said to the canopy, “ye didnae want me to touch ye.”
“There are other ways to get to ken a person.”
He turned his head then. She was a handsbreadth from him in the firelight, propped on one elbow, her hair spilling everywhere, her eyes bright and challenging and just a little afraid, and he understood that he was in the gravest danger of his life and could not make himself care a whit.
“Such as?” he prompted.
She had a chessboard, as it happened. She had found it on the shelf by the window, and she set it up between them on the coverlet with brisk determination, the little carved pieces gleaming.
“Here are me rules,” she said, laying them down with the gravity of a peace treaty. “Every piece ye take of mine buys ye a question. Every piece I take of yers buys me one. And they’re answered honestly, mind, on yer word, on pain of forfeit.”
“And if I daenae answer?” he asked.
“Then ye pay a forfeit of me choosin’.” She smiled, sharp and sweet. “I’d think hard before lyin’ to me, me Laird. I have a long memory and a wicked imagination.”
“I daenae doubt it,” he said.
He moved a pawn, and the game began.
She played as she did everything—recklessly and brilliantly, with no concern for her own defense—and he captured her first knight in just a dozen moves.
“What did ye think,” he asked, “the first time ye saw me clean-shaven in yer courtyard?”
“That ye had nay right to be handsome,” she said at once, scowling, “after bein’ a monster in me memory for six months. It felt like cheatin’.”
Ragnall’s mouth curved slowly and dangerously. “So ye think me handsome.”
“I said nay such thing.”
“Ye said it twice, near enough. Monster and handsome both.” He moved a pawn, unhurried, and watched the color climb up her throat. “Ye’re generous with compliments, lassie. I will be keepin’ that one.”
“Move yer piece and hold yer tongue.” But the scowl had cracked, and she was fighting a smile and losing.
She took his bishop two moves on, fierce with triumph, her cheeks gone pink.
