Page 103 of The Texan Duke
He strode across the room to sit at Gavin’s desk. He motioned her to the chair next to him, a place she’d often sat, especially when she was young and being quizzed on her governess’s lessons.
The duke had not, strangely enough, ever questioned his own daughters. She had often thought that the reason he did so with her was because of the responsibility he felt he owed her father.
Even so, those times alone with Gavin had made his daughters resent her. Perhaps, if he had treated her the same as Lara, Anise, and Muira, they would have been closer growing up. Or maybe not. It was difficult to know something like that because she couldn’t rewrite history.
She sat, folding her hands in her lap, just now realizing she was trembling.
“What are you doing?” she asked as he pulled out a piece of paper and began writing.
“Giving instructions to Mr. Barton to hire more footmen. I want at least two of them to accompany you during the day.” He glanced over at her. “Or do you do all the hiring here, Elsbeth?”
She looked away. “I do most of it,” she admitted. “However, we really don’t need any extra footmen, Connor. Nor do I need an escort everywhere I go.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to stop shivering.
“Hell, Elsbeth, you’re freezing.”
She wanted to tell him that she really wasn’t cold as much as frightened, but she couldn’t say the words. She’d just realized that the would-be killer had to be someone she knew, either a member of the staff or one of the family. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t push away that knowledge.
Connor stood, came around the desk, and scooped her up from the chair, returning to the large leather chair with her in his arms. She’d never sat on anyone’s lap. Perhaps she had as a baby, but those memories were gone. She most certainly had never sat on Connor’s lap.
She really should stand and go back to her chair, but the effort was simply beyond her. Just for a moment, she would lay her head down on his shoulder, her forehead against his neck. Just for a moment, she’d allow him to put his arm around her. Having Connor hold her close felt so warm and comforting that she truly didn’t want to move.
The fireplace was a dozen feet away to her right. The maid had lit it in anticipation of Connor using the room. She felt a spurt of pride for the staff’s industriousness.
She closed her eyes, wishing she could warm up. Wishing, too, that Connor hadn’t seen the White Lady.
It was Gavin who’d told her the story about the girl who’d been abandoned by her lover. He had gone off to war or battle or some dispute with neighbors, leaving her to pine for him. When he’d never returned, she’d cried every night, her grief and anguish audible to everyone at Bealadair. Then one day she simply didn’t wake up. The story went that she’d died of a broken heart.
“I think, perhaps,” Gavin had said, “that she had ‘willed herself no more to live.’” He’d smiled at her. “It’s part of a poem I learned as a boy about the White Lady. Unfortunately, that’s all I can remember of it now.”
Throughout the ages, as the tale went, the White Lady visited the McCraights to warn the laird of some catastrophe, to share her anguish with them, and to prepare the family for a crisis.
Connor moved slightly, and she placed her right hand against his chest, the thudding percussion of his heart reassuring. He wasn’t going to be here for the rest of her life. He wasn’t going to remain at Bealadair. Neither was she. Right now she simply wanted to stop time, encase it in stone, tie down the hands of the clock so it couldn’t march relentlessly onward.
Her hand reached up, her fingers brushing against his throat. He bent his head a little, his cheek against the top of her head.
She was not going to weep. Not now. But he had become, in such a short time, so dear to her. She loved the smell of his skin, the feel of his almost beard against her fingertips. His hair was thick and silky. There was not one thing about him that she would change. Not his boots or his way of walking as if he commanded the earth. Or his occasional arrogant look as he watched other people. You could not help but think that everyone failed his appraisal. He had a way of studying you with his deep brown eyes that saw through every prevarication, every shield you might erect.
He cupped his hand around her jaw and lifted her head.
Time felt as if it did stand still as they looked at each other.
Could he read what she felt for him in her eyes? Was it there for anyone to see? She should have been wise enough to hide it. Then, again, it felt too strong an emotion to be easily hidden.
Her heart felt full with either tears or longing, neither of which she should reveal.
She should leave the room, race up the stairs to her suite where she’d close and barricade the door, send word that she was recuperating from a sudden illness and would not see anyone. Only the two of them would know that he was the reason for her hermit-like state and the illness was a fever whenever she was near him.
He lowered his head slowly, giving her time to move away. She placed her fingertips against his cheek, wishing, paradoxically, that she had the strength to deny him and that she could go on kissing him for the rest of her life.
Kissing him was like coming home, being welcomed in such a way that your heart settled and your soul expanded. She wanted to weep at the sweetness of it, the tenderness of his care for her.
She sighed against his lips, and he tightened his arms around her as if she were a sylph and he was afraid that she would escape him. What woman would ever wish herself away from Connor? Who, granted they had any sense at all, wouldn’t rush into his embrace?
If she couldn’t have him forever, then let her have him now. Here, on a leather chair in the middle of a winter day with the sunlight pouring in through the windows. The room was warm but not as heated as her thoughts.
He stood, lowering her to her feet. He grabbed her hand and pulled her with him to the fire.
