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She didn’t know Davy well, but she’d never heard such a surly tone from him. She hadn’t meant to make him anxious. She liked him so well, she regretted causing him even a moment’s grief. “I hope you’ll forgive me for this morning, Davy. I didn’t mean to be such a wanton.”
His blue eyes softened. “Is that what has you so mopey, lass?”
“I went from your arms last night—”
“To Malcolm’s bed,” he finished, with a chuckle. “I know. I put you there after leaving you wanting. You were just acting upon the desire that I built in you.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Arabella said, not wanting to deny the genuine sensual attraction she felt with Malcolm.
Davy came closer, sporting a cocksure grin. “But mostly true.”
She started to deny it, but then, upon reflection of how Davy had awakened her to a new world of pleasure, she reconsidered. “Perhaps you did have much to do with it…”
He liked that answer, and gently backed her up against the coop. “It’s not that I wanted to stop last night, lass. It’s only that if you’re going to surrender your maidenhead, you ought to have a choice about it, and I wanted you to be sure.”
“A—a choice about it?” she asked, the full realization of what they’d nearly done coming to her more clearly than before.
“Aye, and we’ll abide by it. You have my word on that. Whether you decide upon me or Malcolm, or both, or neither.”
Arabella’s mouth fell open, stunned, as always, by the man’s brazen talk.
“Both?” she asked, breathlessly.
So breathlessly, in fact, that he laughed. “Oh, you like that idea, do you?” It was, of course, a wicked, idea. And when Arabella let her imagination run that way for only a moment, she found herself swaying on her feet. Gleefully, Davy caught her round the waist, and brought his mouth to her ear. “It’s an option, ye ken.”
Goosebumps prickled up her arms. “It’s a wicked, sinful—”
“T’wouldn’t be as much fun if it weren’t wicked and sinful,” Davy interrupted, nipping softly at the lobe of her ear in such a way as to make her gasp again.
This time with pleasure.
“Hush,” he said.
And she thought he meant to kiss her quiet.
But then she saw that his eyes were narrow, the flirtation fled in an instant. His body tensed against hers, alert. Vigilant. He’d heard something. And then she heard it too. The sound of horse hooves. And Arabella’s heart leapt to her throat in fear.
“You stay here,” Davy whispered, reaching for his sword. “Stay hidden, no matter what you hear.”
“You can’t go out there,” Arabella whispered. “They’ll kill you.”
“Likely,” he said, flashing her a grin. “But Malcolm and I will kill a few of them too before we die, and I’m sure you can handle the rest.”
It was bravado, but not false bravado. Bravery that made her heart swell. How could she let him go? She clung to his arm, but he kissed her quickly, then broke free with one last admonition. “Stay hidden.”
He crept from the hen house, quietly, leaving her to secret herself amongst the clucking and pecking birds. And because she wished to hear what was happening outside, she half-thought to wring their scrawny necks to keep them quiet.
She shouldn’t have let Davy go, she thought. Shouldn’t let these men fight and die for her. And at the thought she might never see either of them alive, her eyes flooded with terrified tears. Straining to hear, her fingers going numb in the cold, she thought a muffled shout ring out. But it was gone like a phantom, leaving her to wonder if she’d imagined it. And it seemed like she waited an eternity, crouched in the straw, waiting to hear something. Anything.
A half an hour passed, she thought, though it was hard to say. Until finally the door creaked open, and she wished she never heard it at all. Stay hidden, Davy had said, and so she did. But her
freezing fingers felt in the straw for the ax used to butcher the chickens. It was a tiny weapon, but she was resolved to use it.
They would surely rape her this time, either before or after she was dead. She was sorry to know that it would be these villains who would make her bleed, but she was at least grateful—deeply grateful—that she had known the brief and fleeting pleasure of a kiss. Two kisses. Kisses that made her feel womanly without making her feel like a man’s conquest.
Then she heard Davy’s familiar voice. “You can come out now, lass.”
She exhaled sharply, still grasping the ax, and stood to face him—half-expecting to find him covered in blood and gore. Instead, she found his broad shoulders covered in flakes of snow.
