Page 17 of Promised to the Wicked Laird

"I was looking fer Mairi."

"In the training yard."

"Mairi goes many places."

"Daes she?" His voice had gone low, edged with something that wasn't quite laughter, and the door gave under her hand as he pushed it open and steered her through it without ever quite touching her, only the width of his arm guiding the air around her until her back met the wood on the other side.

The door swung shut behind them with a soft click.

He hadn't put his shirt back on.

Nandag's eyes dropped, betrayed her completely, and snapped back up to his face a half second too late for either of them to pretend she hadn't looked.

"Ye're a hard woman tae catch," Fearchar said, one hand braced against the door beside her head, the other resting loose at his side, giving her every chance to duck under his arm and go if she wanted it. She didn't take it. "First a garden. Now a gallery. "

"I've nae idea what ye mean."

"Ye have nae idea." He leaned in, slow, unhurried, close enough now that she could feel the warmth coming off his bare skin, could smell rain and iron and something warmer underneath both. "Ye stood in that gallery just now and went the color of a MacDonald tartan the moment I looked at ye, and ye expect me to believe ye dinnae ken what I mean? Edinburgh?"

"I remember plenty of things in Edinburgh."

"How about a fountain and a caterpillar." His mouth curved, that same crooked ghost of a smile she'd been trying not to think about since the night before. "Or a lass with wooden pins slipping out her braid who told me no names, and then we kissed like the bells ringing behind us were the only other thing that was real."

"I dinnae recall kissing anyone."

"Nay?" His hand left the door and found the curve of her jaw instead, exactly as it had that first time, his thumb resting light against her cheek, and Nandag's breath caught somewhere in her chest and refused to come loose. "Because I recall it very well. I recall it every time ye go quiet and stubborn like ye're daeing right now, refusing ta e admit ye're thinking about it too."

"I'm nae thinking about anything."

"Yer heart says otherwise." His voice dropped lower still, and he tilted his head. "I can feel it from here, lass. Ye ken exactly what I'm talking about."

"Fearchar."

"Say ye dinnae want tae be reminded then," he murmured, "and I'll step back. I'll nae touch ye again unless ye ask it of me."

Nandag's hands, which had been pressed flat and useless against the door, found the front of his bare chest instead, not to push him away, though she'd have sworn on her mother's grave that had been the intention when she lifted them.

She didn't say it.

A sharp knock cracked against the door at her back, hard enough that she felt it against her spine.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Nandag was still catching her breath, still deciding what to do with a bare-chested laird standing in the middle of her chamber, when the knock rapped sharp against the door again.

"Nandag? It's Mairi. I have a message from yer faither."

Every thought in Nandag's head scattered at once.

"Ye have to go," she hissed, already shoving both palms flat against Fearchar's chest, pushing him toward the wardrobe in the corner with more force than she'd have thought her arms capable of.

"Go where?"

"Anywhere that isnae in me chamber half undressed while Mairi's standing outside the door!"

She wrenched the wardrobe open and shoved him in among her gowns, and it was only once she'd slammed the door shut that she realized his shoulder hadn't quite cleared the frame, one bare arm and a stubborn slice of ribs still very visible through the gap where the door refused to latch properly around him.

"It daesnae fit."