Page 56 of Here in Your Arms
I don’t want to be here anymore, she added, her hands and lips quivering.I hate Druimlach and everyone in it.
***
Tiernan remained at the head of the table long after Rose had fled, his expression carved from stone, his shoulders rigid beneath the weight of too many watchful eyes. He—and Domnall taking leave of hall shortly after Rose had—had put an end to the whispering, but the unease still lingered, thick and cloying, pressing in from all sides.
His patience was wearing thin.
He’d tried to shield her, to silence the insults and whispers, but felt he could have—possibly should have—done more. Although Rose didn’t need him to fight her battles. He’d nevermet a woman—his own mother included—who could hold her own as Rose often did.
But Christ, these people! What was wrong with them? Did they truly believe that Margaret had risen from the dead and walked among them bearing another name?
Fools.
And yet, it wasn’t their superstition that gnawed at him now. It washerexpression before she’d fled.
The way she had looked at him, stricken, hurt. He had not meant to remind her of the scar. It had been the first thing that had marked her as not being Margaret in his mind, and yet, in the silence that had followed his words, he had known he had wounded her.
And then Domnall’s bluidy tirade....
Tiernan clenched his jaw, trying to concentrate on the meal before him.
He wouldn’t follow her.
She would be fine. She was not weak. He had seen the fire in her, the way she squared her shoulders, the way she often met his stare with defiance rather than fear.
And yet, as the minutes stretched on and he couldn’t name one thing he’d eaten, as the hall returned to tense conversation, he found himself rising.
He left without a word, though he knew the whispers would start anew the moment he was gone.
Let them.
He had no real plan for what he would say when he arrived, only the certainty that he could not let her sit alone, stewing in whatever thoughts had sent her fleeing from the hall. He clenched his teeth and rapped firmly on the closed door when he arrived.
“Go away!” Rose called from within.
Tiernan hesitated only a moment before pushing open the door, deciding to ignore her command.
She stood at the small wooden table beneath the window, her back to him, her head bowed over a piece of parchment. A fresh furrow creased his brow, his eyes sweeping over the chamber. The discarded léine lay crumpled on the floor near the bed, as though she’d torn it off in a fit of fury. A scattering of hairpins glinted faintly on the wooden floor, and her strange footwear sat on two opposite sides of the chamber.
Then his gaze returned to her—and stuck.
She was dressed in nothing but her shift. Thin linen clung to her figure in places, catching the light from the fire and rendering it nearly translucent. The delicate slope of her back, the soft curve of her waist, the bare flesh of her shoulders all pulled at his focus with magnetic force.
He looked away, or tried to, shifting his weight from one leg to another.
The floor creaked beneath his step, and she turned sharply, startled—her breath catching as she whirled around.
Her gaze collided with his, and her expression instantly became stark.
He registered everything at once: the rise and fall of her chest beneath the thin fabric, the wild disarray of her half-loosened hair, the flushed heat in her cheeks. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but dry. No tears, and yet something in her face spoke of unraveling.
Tiernan’s throat felt suddenly tight.
She was angry. She was humiliated. And she was beautiful. Fiercely, impossibly beautiful.
For a long moment, they only stared at one another.
Finally, he exhaled through his nose, breaking the silence first.
