Page 66 of The Highland Laird’s Hellion Bride

“I notice more than ye give me credit for.”

That admission seemed to surprise him nearly as much as it surprised her, and he recovered from it by dismounting rather more briskly than the moment strictly required, tethering both horses to a stunted rowan at the base of the hill.

“Can ye climb?” he asked.

“If ye can, I can.”

His mouth twitched, not quite a smile, and he offered his hand for the second time that morning. She took it.

The slope proved considerably steeper than it had looked from horseback, loose scree shifting underfoot with every step.

The first time a stone rolled out from beneath her, Magnus caught her by the waist before she’d fully registered she was falling, his hand spanning nearly her whole side, and set her back on her feet as though she weighed nothing.

“Careful.”

“I am being careful.”

“Doesnae look like it.”

She swatted at his arm, missed, and nearly went down a second time for her trouble, which earned her another steadying grip, this one lingering a beat longer than the loose stone strictly required.

Warmth ran up her side where his hand had been, disproportionate to the practical nature of the touch. She found herself considerably more aware than was useful of how large his hands were, and how easily one of them alone could span her waist, and how little effort it seemed to cost him to keep her upright when a lesser man would have needed both arms and considerable effort besides.

She did not mention any of that. She focused instead on her footing, which required a genuine and continuous effort, given how often the ground seemed determined to slide out from under her.

Wildflowers grew wild between the rocks the higher they climbed, small and yellow and stubborn, rooted in crevices that shouldn’t have held enough soil to sustain anything at all. Bees moved lazily between them, working the same patch over and over with the unhurried confidence of creatures that had never once considered a Highland hillside might be dangerous.

The air smelled of wet earth and crushed grass and faintly of him—woodsmoke and horse and something underneath that she’d stopped trying to name some days back, because naming it seemed to make it worse rather than better.

“How much further?” she asked, more to hear her own voice than because she doubted his answer.

“Nae far.”

“Ye said that a quarter hour ago.”

“It was true then as well.”

She laughed despite herself, and the sound seemed to catch him slightly off guard, his hand finding her elbow again, though the ground had gone level enough just there that she hardly needed the help.

They climbed on past a shelf of grey stone slick with lingering damp. Magnus went first over the worst of it, then turned and reached back for her without being asked, his grip closing around her hand and pulling her up and over in one smooth motion that left her standing rather closer to him than the width of the ledge strictly demanded.

Neither of them stepped back immediately.

“Ye promised nae to touch me before the handfasting,” she said.

Something crossed his face, caught briefly in the act of breaking his word by inches rather than all at once.

“This,” he said, releasing her hand at once and stepping back to a more respectable distance, “was helping ye up a hillside. It doesnae count.”

“Does it nae?”

“Nae in the slightest.” He turned and continued up the last stretch of slope toward the tower before she could press the point further.

She noted, with some satisfaction, that his ears had gone faintly red at the tips, and that he did not look back at her again until they’d very nearly reached the top.

Chapter Nineteen

The tower stood at the crest of the hill, half its stones scattered where the winter frost had heaved them loose. Elspeth sank onto a flat slab of rock near its base the moment they arrived, her legs done with climbing for one morning.