Page 14 of Claimed
“WELL, I’VE NEVER seen ye with a woman,” Drew replied. She deliberately injected a teasing edge to her voice, even as heat crept up her neck. “I assumed that—”
“I’m discreet,” he replied, still smiling.
Drew could see the challenge in his eye now. He was daring her to push on.
“Who then?” she asked casually. She leaned back and took a sip of wine, as if his answer mattered not to her.
“Kenzie.”
Drew’s lips parted in surprise. “The kitchen maid?”
“Aye … there is none other of that name in the broch.”
Kenzie was one of the few kitchen servants who’d remained after the sickness had swept through Dunan. Small, with hair the color of ripe wheat, and warm blue eyes, Drew could see why Broderick might like her.
Even so, Drew favored her guard with an amused smile. “Really?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Ye are surprised?”
“No,” Drew scoffed. “It’s just that Kenzie appears such a shy lass.”
His eyes twinkled. “Not as timid as she appears. A few months ago, she knocked on my bed-chamber door wearing a cloak and nothing under it.”
Drew’s breathing caught. For the first time during their conversation, he’d succeeded in unsettling her. She couldn’t believe that Kenzie, the kitchen lass, had the courage to do something so bold.
For all her flirting, Drew had never acted so recklessly. Something deep inside her chest drew tight as she wished she had. She’d lived such a dull life in many ways.
Drew lifted her goblet and held it up to Broderick in a toast. “Well, here’s to a happy union between ye both … have ye set a wedding date yet?”
Her guard shook his head. He was observing her now with an odd look on his face, as if he was trying to gauge her mood. “Kenzie and I aren’t together, milady. It was one night … and stopped there.”
Drew inclined her head. “Why is that?”
As she held his gaze, Drew saw a veil fall over Broderick’s eyes. “Some encounters are best left to just one occasion,” he replied, his tone guarded. “Kenzie and I both decided that it was for the best.”
Carr followed Drew up the stairs, his steps heavy.
What had been one of the memorable evenings of his life had ended uncomfortably.
I can’t believe I told Lady Drew about Kenzie.
The wine had lowered his guard, loosened his tongue. He was lucky he hadn’t said anything else.
Just as well he hadn’t told Lady Drew that he loved her.
Carr’s lips pressed together into a hard, thin line as he imagined just how humiliating such a confession would have been.
His thoughts returned then to that eve, a few months earlier, when Kenzie had knocked upon his door. She’d stood in the corridor, her blue eyes gleaming, and had parted the cloak to show her nudity underneath. “Just once, Carr,” she’d purred. “I know ye and I can never be … but tonight let us forget that.”
After they’d coupled, Kenzie had admitted she knew Carr’s heart was already spoken for.
“It’s Lady Drew, isn’t it?” she asked, propping herself up onto one elbow and observing him frankly. “I’ve seen the way ye gaze upon her.”
A chill had crept over Carr’s body at her comment. Satan’s cods, was he that obvious?
Kenzie had smiled at the panic that had obviously shown upon his face. “Worry not … I doubt anyone else has noticed. Lady Coira perhaps … although Lady Drew herself is oblivious to it.”
Those words had stung, yet they were true. Lady Drew didn’t see him as a man. To her he was ‘Broderick’: the reserved guard who dogged her steps and curtailed her freedom.
