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Clean stockings were provided, and ill-fitting leather shoes that had been made to fit either foot. Her hand-sewn moccasins were set aside to be cleaned. Then Alice set to work on Grace’s hair, sitting her down on the bench before the fire and slowly drawing a wooden comb through the wet strands. “What’s yer name, lass?” she asked comfortably.
“Grace.” The motion of the comb in her hair was soothing. Grace’s eyelids drooped almost shut.
“Ye’ve lovely hair, so thick and shiny and smooth. Takes a bit to dry, though, aye?”
“I braid it while it’s still wet, sometimes,” she said in answer.
The door opened behind her, and she recognized the booted footsteps. “I’ll finish, Alice,” Niall said, taking the comb from her hand. Alice took the wet linens and the platter with her when she left.
“Turn,” Niall said, and Grace swiveled on the bench, turning her other side to the fire. He was as skilled as Alice with the comb, sliding his muscular forearm under her hair and lifting it, letting the heat of the fire dry it more evenly.
Her heartbeat had speeded when he entered. Though she sat quietly while he combed her hair, the sedative effect had vanished. Instead that feeling of being hypersensitive had seized her again, tightening her skin, sending twinges through her nerve endings.
Panic began to tighten her stomach. She had been braced for a full-scale seduction. This subtle gentling was far more dangerous to her res
olve.
“Ye asked for food yesterday, in the kitchens,” Niall said conversationally. “Ye were weak wi’ hunger, having not eaten for two days, ye said. Then ye vanished, and no one saw ye for hours, until ye came into my chamber. Where were ye?”
“I told you last night,” she said, her tone as even and without heat as his. “I hid, and I fell asleep.”
“Where did ye hide?”
“In an alcove.” She turned her head to glance at him over her shoulder. “Or did you think I turned myself into a bat and perched in your belfry?”
“Creag Dhu doesna have a belfry,” he said in amusement. “Tell me where ye’ve been for two days, if ye left Hay Keep hard on my heels. Why did ye come here? Creag Dhu is for broken men and outlaws, not lovely lasses with hands soft as a bairn’s.”
“I couldn’t escape right away,” Grace explained. “I had to hide in the granary for several hours, until everyone slept again. I stole a horse, but there was fog… I got lost.” She turned around again, this time to glare at him. “If you hadn’t left me behind, I wouldn’t have gotten lost.”
“Sit still,” he commanded, turning her back. “Ye’ll pull your hair.” The comb resumed its strokes through her hair. “As for why I didna bring ye with me, the reason is the question I just asked, and ye didna answer. Why did ye come here? Last night ye said for food, and shelter, but when ye got here ye didna even try to ask those things of me.”
She was silent, searching for a plausible answer. She couldn’t say because of the dreams, because for the most part they had been so blatantly sexual in nature, and yet she had rebuffed him not an hour ago.
“Also,” he continued softly, “there was other shelter, closer than two days’ ride, if that is truly what ye wanted. And once ye were here, all ye had to do was ask for me, instead of tricking your way into the castle. If ye thought I would refuse ye, lass, then your insistence on coming here is no verra logical. I still have the same question. Why Creag Dhu?”
He was relentless, and he hadn’t missed any of the holes in her logic. She hadn’t come to this time expecting everyone to be ignorant barbarians, easily outwitted, but still she was dismayed by the sophisticated nature of his reasoning. Niall wasn’t at the disadvantage here; she was, tripped up by her own actions. He was right; simply approaching the gates and asking for him would have been far less suspicious.
She bowed her head, looking at her hands twisting together in her lap. She fingered her wedding ring, and for once deliberately tried to bring up Ford’s image in her mind. She needed him now, sitting here before the fire with Black Niall’s hands gentle in her hair. But it was difficult to concentrate, and she couldn’t pull the details together.
“I was too embarrassed,” she blurted.
The comb paused. “Were ye, now?” The deep voice was little more than a murmur. He slid his hand around her neck, under her hair, and she jumped in surprise. He crooned something soothing in Gaelic, and his thumb began to rub the nape of her neck. “Because I gave ye pleasure, in the dungeon? I’ll admit to a bit of surprise, but then I greatly enjoyed it. A man likes for a lass to shiver and moan in his arms.”
She shivered now, in response to both the memory and the caress of his thumb on her neck. He moved his hand just a little, so that he rubbed and massaged the cords that joined neck and shoulder, and she bit back a moan. Desire pooled deep in her belly, between her legs, and her breasts tightened. It was a dangerous man who knew the sensitivity of a woman’s neck, where a caress was like a bolt of lightning through her body. A touch on her breast was more intimate—but a touch on her neck was more seductive. Niall knew well what he was doing.
She tried to control her breathing, which was coming in short, erratic spurts. “I haven’t—I mean, there’s been only… we had just met!”
He laughed, the soft sound totally male and self-confident. “That isna true. Ye’ve been in my bed many times.”
She gathered herself, tried to inject a note of firmness into her tone. “Those were dreams, not reality.”
“Were they not? When I wake wi’ my seed spurting from me, it feels verra damn real to me.” The words were full of masculine wryness.
Her breath caught on a surge of yearning so abrupt and intense it felt like pain. She wanted to feel him come inside her, wanted to feel that powerful body surge and convulse while she held him close, wanted to watch his face.
“Ye like that thought, do ye? Your wee nipples ha’ gone as hard as berries.”
She wasn’t the only one aroused; she could hear it in the slight thickening of his accent. She closed her eyes and for a moment the only sound was that of their breathing, fast and erratic.
