Page 36 of The Laird's Secret Bairn

Skye wanted to push. She wanted to see how far she could go. Maybe Dougal wanted the same thing.

His face was impossible to read, and not just the part covered by the mask. There was a second mask he had worn so long beneath the physical one that she wondered if he even knew how to take it off.

“I didnae realize a time had to be specified.”

“It must,” she insisted.

She was playing with fire, but she wasn’t about to stop now. He had asked her to meet him, yes, but he had not said when. It was he who had insisted on this meeting after pulling her aside and expressing his jealousy. He denied it, but she knew enough when a man was jealous. She had seen it when her brother was courting Emily.

It had been a sight to behold, for her once-quiet brother had turned into someone she did not recognize. Freya had assured her that it was normal, but Skye had never experienced it before.

“Now would suit me.”

Of course it would. Everything suited Dougal the moment he decided it should, and the rest of the world was expected to fall into step.

Skye had watched him all day, brooding by the yard’s edge, and she’d felt his eyes on her the whole time, heavy and unmistakable even from a distance. It had done something foolish to her pulse, watching him watch her, knowing exactly why.

But then it hit Skye that Dougal shouldn’t be the one to dictate when they did and didn’t speak. She was going to make it clear that now didn’t suit her. He would have to wait and see when she was ready to speak.

That was fair enough, since he was the one to spring this talk on her.

“Now doesnae suit me.” She finally lifted her eyes to his and immediately regretted it. The firelight caught the sharp line of his jaw, the intensity banked behind his gaze, and her resolve wavered dangerously. She held it together by sheer will. “I’m flushed and out of sorts, and I daenae trust meself to speak plainly with ye while I’m like this.”

It was the truth, more of it than she meant to give him. She could still feel the ghost of his hands from two nights past, still feel the way her whole body had gone traitorous and pliant beneath his touch.

She wasn’t about to hand him another victory so easily, not when he’d all but ordered her here like she was a hound to be called. Then there was earlier that day when he had beckoned her to him, interrupting her conversation with Stephen.

She had made him jealous. And a part of herlikedit.

She liked that she had some effect on him. It always seemed to be Dougal who was affecting her, keeping her on edge and making her walk around the castle with a near-permanent rosy hue on her pale cheeks.

But this time, perhaps for the first time since they had met, she had the upper hand.

“Skye,” he almost growled in frustration, but she wasn’t going to let him continue speaking before she had said her piece.

“I’ll come to ye when I’m ready,” she said, cutting him off before he could talk his way past her defenses the way he always seemed to manage. “Nae when ye command it. I hope ye can understand that.”

Dougal’s jaw tightened. “I wasnae commanding anything.”

She almost laughed. Almost.

Did he truly not think he was commanding? He was always doing so. Even Lily would agree to it, whether she truly understood what was being asked of her or not.

“Ye were. Ye always are, even when ye think ye’re asking nicely,” Skye didn’t hesitate to point out. He needed to hear the truth.

He opened his mouth, and for one unsteady moment, she thought he might argue, might reach for her the way he had by the stable wall. Some small, reckless part of her hoped he would.

But he only stood there, his jaw working, saying nothing at all. His silence felt almost more dangerous than words would have been.

She moved away from the window where she had been standing before she could change her mind, smoothing her skirts, refusing to let her hands shake where he could see. “Goodnight, Dougal.”

She didn’t wait for a reply. She swept past him toward the stairs, her heart hammering the entire way traitorously, and did not allow herself to look back to see whether he watched her go.

She already knew the answer. She could feel it between her shoulder blades the whole length of the corridor.

It was surprising that he didn’t reach out, grab her arm, and stop her in her tracks.

Had she dared look over her shoulder, her resolve, which she had built up, would crumble before her. It wasn’t until she reached the top of the stairs that she allowed herself to breathe properly, one hand pressed against the cool stone wall.