Page 27 of A Highland Rogue to Ruin

What did it mean? Where would she find him?

The game tables. It was the likeliest place, for she’d said he’d have to best her and he spoke of a game.

What we did last night did mean something to him. He’s still thinking about me.

But how would she get free? She was supposed to take a guard everywhere now. And James had forbidden her from seeing Tormund. Peeking through the front flaps, she saw their guardsmen at their posts. Aileana was installed at the fire, embroidering and sipping watered wine, her belly round with child. Brighde bit her lip. She didn’t like to sneak, or defy.

But if she did nothing, she’d miss her chance to see him and she’d come to the faire in hopes of living, of making the most of her freedom. No one was paying attention to her anymore. They thought she’d gone to bed. Fretting her lip and finger, she summoned a deep breath. Whirled her tartan mantle around her shoulders and tucked and folded it at her waist to secure it. Gathering the coin in her fist, she slipped out the back of her tent and climbed toward the woods beyond.

…

The coin landed in front of Tormund with a hard thud, rattling the game pieces on the trestle table where he’d sat with Brighde last night.

A smirk quirked one corner of his mouth. He’d gotten a rise out of the wee princess trapped in Tioram’s towers. After an afternoon of regrets, he couldn’t shake how principled she’d been in her conviction of right and wrong. How she’d flinched from a man drawing a blade on her, who she knew only through vicious feuding, who’d stolen her virtue, while still offering him an olive branch.

He glanced up her body, at the soft blue confection of shimmery silk damask blooming around her, beaded with swirls of seed pearls, so fine and rich. And then her wrapped in that enemy MacDonald plaid of red and green splendor, cinched at her waist as if a Christmastide parcel just for him. What would she look like tucked into his yellow tartan? Setting her sunshine hair aglow? Wearing his ultimate mark? He’d never know. Tonight was one more taste of her to burn her out of his blood, and then he’d let her go. Tonight was him being too stubborn to accept her reparations and gift.

Her face was set in an adorable frown that pinched her lush lips and brows maternally. She opened her mouth. He braced himself for a tongue-lashing—

“I thought ye’d left. I thought ye didna want to see me again.”

The simple remark caught him off guard and he pushed onto his boots, rising, as she continued.

“Everyone saw ye collect yer weapons and leave with yer men,” she persisted.

“Just an outing.” To plan yer brother’s death. “I came back.”

“Why?” Her eyes searched his, filled with innocent hope she was trying hard to quell.

He cupped her cheek. Her hand rose to envelop his, but she hesitated as if thinking better of touching him, then lowered her hand. Christ, that hesitation was his own burden to bear. He’d made her doubt his genuine desire for her when last night she’d grabbed him as she pleased. Still, his fingers migrated from her cheek to her hair that he’d once anchored in his grip. Relief lifted the boulder in his gut to be touching her again and that she was letting him, relishing how her eyes landed upon his lips with longing.

“There’s this lass who’s gotten under my skin.”

Her cheeks erupted in those sweet starbursts. The frown receded as her eyes widened.

“She might be an angel, but she makes me wish to sin. One taste wasna’ enough.”

She opened her mouth once more to speak, but he pushed her chin up to shut it with his thumb. He couldn’t let her hope burgeon. This attraction they shared was a delicious spirit they needed to rid their bodies of before they became addicted, for he’d never be able to keep her. Yet it was clear to him she truly did like him, which still came as a shock, as did the realization that he’d missed her all day. She had every reason to hate him for the way he’d treated her, for having attacked Tioram while she’d been in residence, which shamed him.

“I, eh.” He cleared his throat, prepared to do something he’d never done. But dammit, she could lie all she wanted about not fearing him, yet it was clear she still did. “I’m sorry.” Her brow furrowed as to why. “About the blade. ’Twill no’ happen again. The last thing I want is for ye to fear me.”

“Ye nay like being touched?”

He studied her. He liked it when she touched him. That being touched could suddenly feel so vital, when he’d lived his life without it until now. “I’m nay used to it. But ye can touch me whenever ye want, angel. Come. If ye want me to keep that coin, I have to beat ye.”

Her eyes darted toward the trestle table and the chessboard upon it.

He shook his head, chuckling wryly, as his hand dropped from her face and slipped down her arm to lace his fingers with hers. “Nay that. Ye’re too bloody good if ye can choose when ye lose.”

That smile brightened her kissable lips. Hell, it felt like he’d won a hard-fought boon. The stars in her eyes returned. James had kept this brilliant woman innocent despite the tumult that embroiled the Highlands. Part of Tormund was angered that he’d sheltered her and denied her a life of her own. Part of him was grateful someone like her still existed in a world filled with retaliations and war and growing political tension.

“What if I’d nay come?”

“Ye would have.” He glanced sidelong as he slung a sack across his shoulder, dropped the purse of coin within, and led her into the woods.

“Ye seem so certain.”

He harrumphed. “Did anyone follow ye?”