Page 78 of Here in Your Arms
Margaret.Rose thought he saw—wanted!—Margaret.
His jaw tightened, the muscle twitching, while it gnawed at him, her mistaken impression.
It wasn’t Margaret he had wanted.
It had never been Margaret.
Margaret had been kind, gentle, and perfectly agreeable in every way. She had been exactly what a man like him was meant to have—obedient, dutiful, an easy companion who would never challenge, never demand. She had been raised to be a wife, a lady of a keep, to rule quietly, with grace and composure.
Rose was none of those things.
She was fire where Margaret had been water, all sharp edges and fierce words, refusing to be shaped or molded intosomething more palatable. She was restless, opinionated, wholly untamed. She had walked into Druimlach a stranger, a woman alone in a world not her own, and yet she had not cowered. She had faced him, fought him with words, with defiance, with that sharp, unrelenting mind that made her unlike any woman he had ever known.
It washerhe wanted.
He hadn’t been thinking of Margaret—not even for a moment.
I look at ye and....
He hadn’t finished the statement because he couldn’t. Because it had struck him too suddenly. Because finishing the sentence would’ve laid something bare that he wasn’t prepared to face, let alone speak aloud.
Honestly, either now or then he didn’t know what he might have actually said, but he knew damn well what had floated through his mind at the moment.
He looked at her and forgot reason.
He looked at her and saw fire. Not the wild kind that raged and destroyed, but the kind that burned steady and strong. A resilient flame. A woman who shouldn’t have survived here—who by all rights didn’t belong in this world—and yet somehow had.
He looked at her and saw defiance wrapped in vulnerability. He saw the way she squared her shoulders even when she was frightened, the way she met a room with her chin high, even when it trembled. He saw the scar that sliced across her cheek—not just a mark of pain but a part of her, a piece of her story that hadn’t dulled her in the least.
He saw a woman who challenged him. Who listened with interest, argued with heat, looked at him not with awe or deference—butcuriosity. Like she wanted to know him. Really know him.
I look at ye and....
And I want to protect ye. And I want to understand ye. And I can’t stop looking.
Pain creased his features as he considered what else he hadn’t said.
It should have been....
He sighed, knowing what he’d meant to say there as well, and how guilt had made him clamp his lips against the truth.It should have been like this with the woman I was meant to take as wife. I should have felt this way for Margaret. I should’ve cared. I should have mourned.
He had been lying to himself. For years, he’d told himself Margaret was exactly what he wanted—quiet, composed, biddable. A woman who would never raise her voice, never question him. She was safe. Predictable.
But Rose—God above, Rose was none of those things. She challenged him at every turn. Rose had challenged what he’d told himself was the truth—he didn’t want serenity. He had never needed quiet.
What he wanted was fire. A woman who stood toe to toe with him, met his sharpness with her own, forced him to feel and think and want more than he’d ever let himself before.
But he hadn’t said any of that. Hadn’t saidanything.
Furiously, he reached for his hose and breeches, meaning to dress and give chase. A simple explanation—clarification—was all that was needed. He would do that before the misunderstanding festered into something worse.
Tiernan paused, the garments suspended in his hands. Unless he planned to bang on every door in Dunmara and demand her whereabouts like some madman in the dead of night, there was little he could do now.
Another thought gave him further pause.
Could anything truly come of what they had just shared?
He clenched his jaw, still staring at the door she’d closed between them. Rose could never live in peace at Druimlach, not as things stood. The whispers would never cease, the tension would never lift, and she would always be trapped beneath the weight of Margaret’s shadow, wearing the face of someone she wasn’t. He’d just been witness to such a spectacular phenomenon, had seen the agony of it.
