Page 38 of Scot of Deception
The knock on his door had Blaine reaching for his dagger, though for what purpose, he didn’t know. Surely, if there was someone out there who wished to harm him, they wouldn’t be knocking on his door to announce their presence.
Must be a servant.
But what could a servant possibly want at that time of the night? Blaine was just about to head to bed after the feast and he didn’t think many people would be awake at that time of the night. He padded over to the door and opened it—only to reveal Kathleen at the other side, her auburn hair loose overher shoulders, her dress thrown haphazardly over her nightshift as if she had removed it to go to sleep and then had changed her mind, coming to Blaine’s chambers instead.
Blaine’s breath caught in his throat the moment he saw her. The way she looked at him, her burning gaze traveling down from his face to his body, then back up to rest on his eyes, filled his veins with such heat that he feared he would burn up from the inside. She looked like a nymph, like a sprite come to torture him with his forbidden desire, but Blaine couldn’t find it in him to turn her away.
He should have. He should have told her to go back to her room, to go to sleep. Instead, he stepped aside silently and let her inside, closing the door softly behind her.
“I couldnae sleep,” Kathleen said as she walked over to the fire and lowered herself to the plush carpet that lay before it, pulling her knees to her chest. “I thought I’d come see if ye were still awake.”
“Well, I am,” Blaine said, instead of informing her that he was just about to go to sleep. Wisdom seemed to evade him that night. “Are ye nae tired from the travels?”
“Nae as much as I’d have thought,” Kathleen said. Then, silence fell between them as she sat by the fire and Blaine stood near the door, the two of them watching each other.
He didn’t know what to say to her. It was rare for him, knowing what to say, and everything that had happened between them only made it harder for him to find the right words. He wanted Kathleen desperately; he wanted to never see Kathleen again just as desperately. Either way, he was bound to suffer.
I dinnae want her tae suffer.
“Let us play a game,” Kathleen said, breaking the silence. Blaine couldn’t help but roll his eyes in response. They shouldn’t be playing games in the middle of the night; they should be sleeping, in separate beds, in separate rooms. But then, before he could protest, Kathleen’s lips stretched into a teasing grin that reminded him of the last time she had suggested such a game, and he couldn’t find it in him to refuse.
Shaking his head, he chuckled softly and opened his arms in invitation. “What kind o’ game?”
“A card game,” Kathleen said “I used tae play it with Fenella when we were younger but she’s asleep already, so I thought ye might wish tae play it with me.”
Blaine couldn’t help but wonder if that was true; if Kathleen had already tried Fenella’s chambers first, knocking on her door to see if she would spend a few hours with her and keep her company, or if she was only using it as an excuse and hadcome straight to his chambers instead. The latter was wishful thinking, he decided. Of course Kathleen would have gone to see her friend first rather than come to him.
As Blaine approached her, sitting down across from her on the rug, Kathleen pulled a deck of cards out of her pocket, shuffled them, and then began to deal them out to the two of them.
“An’ how dae ye play it?” Blaine asked.
“Well, we take turns playin’ our hands an’ whoever wins dares the other tae dae somethin’ silly,” she said. “Ye must dae it or ye must drink.”
Blaine raised a disapproving eyebrow. “That sounds hardly proper fer two lasses.”
“Ach, dinnae start with that,” Kathleen said, waving the hand that held the rest of the deck dismissively. “Why can ye dae it but we cannae?”
“Because ye’re lasses,” Blaine pointed out.
“That means naethin’ tae me,” said Kathleen and Blaine couldn’t help but laugh despite himself. Of course it didn’t; Kathleen had left Moy Hall all on her own, never onceconsidering the consequences or the danger that awaited her. A simple card game and a few cups of wine were hardly a concern to her compared to that.
“Fine. We dinnae have any wine, though,” Blaine pointed out.
“Then we must dae the dares without skippin’ any,” Kathleen said, her grin only widening.
Blaine didn’t like the sound of that at all.
As Kathleen explained the rest of the rules of the game to him, Blaine watched and listened attentively to her—as much as he could, at least, when the sight of her in the light of the fire was so captivating. His mind kept wandering to other things, things he shouldn’t be considering at all. The more he tried to stay focused, though, the more resistance his mind put up, as if the thought of having intimate moments with her was all it could conjure in that moment.
And that was precisely how he lost the first round.
“I dare ye tae remove yer boots with one foot,” Kathleen said, laughing and rubbing her hands together, entirely too delighted by Blaine’s first defeat.
At the dare, Blaine could only stare at her, unimpressed. “How will I dae that?”
“Dinnae ken,” said Kathleen, shrugging a shoulder. “Figure it out.”
For a few moments, Blaine didn’t move. He truly had no idea how to even begin. But as Kathleen looked at him expectantly, he let out a long-suffering sigh and stood, slapping his hand on the mantel to keep his balance.
