Page 50 of Here in Your Arms
“I’m... I’m not Margaret,” she whispered, her voice terribly small and weak.
Tiernan’s jaw clenched tighter, his blue eyes turbulent with something dark and conflicted. “And dinna I bluidy well ken it.”
The words struck her like a blow. Rose blinked, searching his face, uncertain. “You... you didn’t mean to do that.”
Tiernan took a step back. His voice came out hoarse, roughened by something raw and dangerous. “Bluidy hell,” he growled before he turned and, without another word, walked away.
Rose remained as she was, frozen by the shock of it.
Tiernan MacRae had kissed her.
***
Tiernan rode hard, pushing his horse over the rolling terrain, past the familiar paths and into the open countryside where the land stretched vast and empty before him. He welcomed the bruising ride, the pounding rhythm of hooves against damp earth filling the silence that had followed him out of Druimlach, away from Rose. The crisp air burned in his lungs, sharp and biting, but it did nothing to steady the pulse still hammering in his veins.
He had kissed Rose. Kissed her, dammit!
Bluidy hell,hadhe meant to do that?
The question unsettled him more than he cared to admit, but mostly because the truth was difficult to ignore. He had not acted on impulse, not truly. It had been reckless, yes, but also deliberate. His body had moved before his mind could stop him, his fingers tangling in her hair, his mouth crushing against hers, taking what he should not have allowed himself to even want.
His grip tightened on the reins, and his horse tossed its head, sensing his unrest. Tiernan forced himself to exhale slowly, steadying his hold, slowing the destrier to a trot, but the frustration remained, gnawing at him like a wound leftuntended. He had kissed her with a hunger that had blindsided him, had let himself be consumed by the pull he hadn’t entirely been aware he’d been fighting.
And she had kissed him back. What in God’s name hadshebeen thinking?
He had never kissed Margaret. Not once. The realization sat bitterly in him, adding to his turmoil. He had never even been tempted. Margaret had been his betrothed, a woman he had known since childhood, a woman whose presence in his life had always been inevitable. She bore no disfiguring scar, didn’t challenge him, was serene and biddable, carried herself with quiet dignity.
Ah, but she had never made his blood burn. She had never haunted his thoughts or drawn his gaze no matter how fiercely he tried to resist. Margaret had never made him hunger.
But Rose—
His jaw clenched once again. He had been fooling himself to think he was in control. From the moment she arrived at Druimlach, things had not been the same—he’d not been the same. He’d watched her from the first moment she had stepped into his hall, standing before himself and Margaret’s parents, nervous but not cowering, uncertain but not afraid. Her voice had been small then, barely above a whisper, her hands clenched tight at her sides, yet there had been some boldness in her, something that had refused to shrink beneath the weight of all the incredulous eyes.
He had seen it again when she had been cornered in the bailey, surrounded by men who did not trust her presence among them, who whispered of ghosts and curses and things that had no place in reason. She’d not faltered, hadn’t pleaded for him to intervene or defend her. Instead, she’d turned her fire on him, had provoked him, had demanded to know why he did not have better control over his men. No fear, only defiance.
And then, that moment in the woods. He’d barely recovered from being thrown, his body still aching, his pride bruised, and she had come upon him, concern etched into her features. But there had been more than concern—there had been determination, a refusal to be dismissed, a boldness that had made it clear she was not the kind of woman to turn away simply because he willed it.
When Brody MacIntyre had departed Druimlach, Tiernan could have sent her with him. Heshouldhave.
Dammit, he’d kissed her!
Rose Carlisle was a dangerous distraction, one he had no business craving, a distraction that neither made sense nor sat well with him. She’d arrived in his world unbidden—unwelcome!—with a story too impossible to be real, with fiery eyes that beseeched and challenged him.
Damn her for coming. Damn her for disturbing him so completely, for stirring something useless in him, some aching want he’d thought either long buried or believed himself incapable of feeling.
***
Rose found Leana in the solar, a chamber set high in the keep, warmed by the late-morning sun that poured through a narrow arched window. The space was modest in size, more intimate than the great hall but still large enough to serve as both a retreat and a place for quiet work. An expertly woven tapestry hung along one wall, its once-rich colors now softened with age, depicting a pastoral scene of shepherds guiding their flocks across rolling hills and women gathering sheaves of wheat beneath a golden sky. A carved wooden chest sat beneath the window, its lid partially open, revealing folded linens inside. A sturdy table occupied the center of the room, scattered withembroidery tools, a few scraps of parchment, and a candle nearly burned down to the nub. A cushioned chair—one of the few luxuries in the room—was drawn close to the hearth, though the fire had been reduced to embers, barely needed on such a mild day.
Rose hovered at the threshold, her breath still uneven, her thoughts far more so. Her lips still tingled—faintly, maddeningly—from Tiernan’s kiss. She had replayed it over and over in her mind as she’d climbed the stairs. The force and heat of it, the way her whole body had seemed to vanish into his arms, the world narrowing to only him—Christ, the very fact that hehadkissed her!
And the most disorienting part of all, not the kiss itself, but how fiercely she’d wanted more.
She swallowed hard and shook the thought away.
Leana sat near the window, where the light was best, her hands unmoving over a length of embroidery stretched taut in a wooden frame. Though her needle was poised, she was not stitching, her gaze angled toward the window, lost in thought.
For a moment, Rose hesitated in the doorway, uncertain how to begin.
