Page 85 of The Highland Laird’s Hellion Bride

Chapter Twenty-Four

Magnus turned the cup once more in its new stand, adjusting it a hair to the left, then a hair to the right, though it had already sat exactly where it needed to. He set his hands flat on the desk on either side of it and studied the crest like it might tell him something the wood hadn’t already said twice.

“Thank ye, Elspeth.” He said it quietly, then cleared his throat at once, as though the words had come out wearing the wrong coat.

She didn’t say anything. She only shifted her weight, the candlelight sliding gold along the line of her jaw. Magnus found he’d stopped looking at the cup.

“Ye should retire for the evenin’,” he said.

“Should I?”

“Aye.”

“That’s a fine way to thank a woman for a gift. Toss her out the door before the candle’s burned an inch.”

“I’m nae tossin’ ye anywhere.” He came around the desk half a step, then caught himself and stopped, one hand braced flat against the wood like he needed something to hold him in place.

“Ye’re standin’ there lookin’ at the door like ye wish it would open itself.”

He hadn’t been looking at the door. He looked at it now, on principle, and regretted it because it gave her something to smile about, and her smile did more damage to a room than the fire in the furnace shed had.

“Our handfasting is the day after tomorrow,” he said, which was not an answer to anything she’d said.

“Aye, I’m aware. I’ve had four fittings this week alone. Katherine has opinions about ribbon that could start a war.”

“And if ye daenae leave this study within the next moment⁠—”

“If I daenae leave,” she said, tilting her head, the movement slow enough that a loose curl slid free of its pin and settled against her throat, “what?”

He watched the curl settle. He should not have watched the curl settle.

“Then I cannae promise ye safety.”

“From whom?”

“From me.” He said it low, and his fingers curled tighter around the edge of the desk.

Her breath caught, audible in the quiet.

The fire crackled behind him. The cup sat forgotten in its new stand between them, and neither of them looked at it again.

“Magnus.”

She didn’t finish it. She didn’t leave either.

He stood there with the desk between them, which had seemed moments ago like a reasonable enough distance, and now felt like no distance at all.

“Ye’re supposed to be frightened of me,” he said.

“I was. For the first fortnight.” She folded her arms, chin coming up, settling into the argument. “Ye ruined it by mendin’ Mrs. McAulay ’s henhouse door in the rain rather than sendin’ a man to do it. Beasts daenae fix henhouses.”

“It leaked. A man cannae sleep soundly kennin’ that a door’s swingin’ loose in the wind half the night.”

“Aye. And ye could have told her to wait till mornin’.”

“I daenae like leaks.” He said it flatly, then heard how it sounded and looked away from her, jaw working, as if the words had betrayed him rather than the leak.

“Ye daenae like a great many things, and yet here I am, standin’ in yer study, unafraid.”