Page 79 of The Highland Laird’s Hellion Bride

The movement brought her considerably closer than the width of a supper table generally allowed, close enough that the scent of her—rose and something warmer underneath it—reached him well before she’d even closed her hand around the fruit she wanted.

He went very still.

“Pardon,” she said, not looking at him, plucking a fig from the platter with a lot of concentration.

“I’m fine.”

He was not, in fact, fine, and he suspected she knew it because she took considerably longer to settle back in her seat. He found himself staring hard at his plate for the length of several breaths afterward, willing the whole of the last twenty seconds out of his head with no notable success.

Beneath the table, her knee brushed his. He didn’t think she’d meant it. The bench was narrow, and Agnes had wedged herself in beside her mother in a way that pushed the whole line of them closer together than the seating had originally allowed—but it didn’t matter whether she’d meant it.

His whole leg grew aware of the contact in a manner disproportionate to what had actually occurred. It was Elspeth who shifted first this time, drawing her knee back with a small, sharp motion and reaching for her wine with a great deal of urgency.

“Something wrong, Elspeth?” Katherine asked, mid-sentence about lilies versus heather.

“Nay, nae at all.”

“Ye’ve gone quite red.”

“It’s warm in here.”

“It’s the same temperature it’s been all evening.”

“It’s warmer near the fire,” Elspeth said.

Mercifully, Katherine let it go and returned to her lilies.

Magnus drank rather more ale over the course of that supper than he generally allowed himself, and found it did very little to help, mostly because the problem wasn’t thirst. Duncan caught him refilling his cup for the third time and raised an eyebrow, but for once, he had the mercy not to comment on it aloud, which Magnus appreciated more than he cared to admit.

“Magnus.” Liam leaned in. “Duncan tells me ye doubled the watch.”

“Aye. After the fire.”

“Wise, given the circumstances.” Liam’s voice dropped, pitched for his ears only. “Ye think it’s connected to O’Brien.”

“I think it’s connected to something, and I’ve nae ruled out the obvious answer.”

“Ye’ll want more men at the border then, nae just the ridge.”

“I’ve already sent word.”

Magnus was briefly grateful for a conversation that required actual attention rather than the considerable effort of not looking at the woman two seats down. He gave himself over to it fully, discussing patrol routes and supply lines with Liam for the better part of ten minutes, during which he almost managed to forget the fig incident.

Almost.

Elspeth, for her part, seemed to be having no easier time of it. He caught her once, mid-laugh at something Agnes had said, glance his way and catch herself doing it, before swiftly looking back at her plate. He didn’t call attention to it. He understood the impulse rather too well to hold it against her.

By the time the meal wound down, servants clearing plates, Agnes drooping against her mother’s side, Katherine debating flowers with anyone who’d give her half an ear, Magnus had drunk more ale than usual, discussed border patrols, and successfully avoided touching Elspeth again for the better part of an hour, which he counted on the whole as a fairly hollow victory.

He rose when the meal ended, intending a swift and dignified retreat before anything further could test his resolve. He found, rounding the end of the table, that Elspeth had risen at precisely the same moment, and that the narrow space between the bench and the wall left them standing rather closer together than either of them had planned for.

Neither moved first.

* * *

Magnus had told Duncan more than once that he did not care for surprises, and Duncan had told him more than once that a man about to be married had better get used to them.

So, it was with a certain resignation that he found himself walking down toward the loch the next morning, summoned by a servant boy who’d relayed only that “the ladies want ye at the water, me Laird, and Lady MacDougal said to say it’s urgent, though she was smiling when she said it, so I daenae ken how urgent it truly is.”