Page 16 of A Virgin for the Icy Highlander
He took another half-step, leaving little more than a hand’s breadth between them.
The tilt of her neck was a torturous thing. His fingertips craved the sensation of her silky locks against his skin, the feel of running his hand up the nape of that arched neck, into her soft, raven-black hair.
He told himself it was nothing but a desire to support her neck, which must have been aching by now, staring up at him like that, but even he didn’t believe that.
“You wouldn’t harm me,” she said thickly, breathing harder. “You need me.”
He dipped his head. “Who said anythin’ about harm? There’s more than one way to teach a lesson.”
He was close enough that one more decisive bend of his head would bring his mouth to hers. And she didn’t step away, shove him, or uncross her arms and smack him. Rather, she let herarms fall to her sides. Her hands curled into fists—not to punch, but like she didn’t trust what her hands might do if given their freedom.
If she stays the week, she’ll be me wife anyway…
What harm could there be in a little taste? Perhaps a kiss would make her more obliging, for if he could keep her mouth busy, maybe it would keep the questions about the past firmly off her tongue.
A scream shattered through his skull. A scream he had heard a thousand times before, in the back of his mind, echoing over and over like true torture. It was a scream straight from that wretched past that wouldn’t leave him be. But it was the first time he had heard it as a warning, rather than a reminder.
He stepped back, hardening his expression. “Me wishes are final.”
With that, he turned and left.
The echo of that scream still resounded in his head, pursuing him down every hallway. For that was the trouble with memory; no matter how far he tried to run from it, no matter how deeply he buried it in his mind, no matter what he did to escape it, it always found him.
It will be a marriage of convenience. Dinnae forget that.
For his daughter’s sake, and Grace’s, he could not afford to.
Grace sagged against the wall, her hand on her chest, fruitlessly attempting to steady her breathing. She should have been cursing that man for ordering her around, so why on earth was she cursing the fact that he had left so abruptly?
Why was her skin tingling and her heart racing? Why wasn’t she utterly terrified of the sort of punishment a man like that—a seasoned warrior—could mete out? Indeed, why was she… curious instead?
I must be going mad. The berries in the tea must have been rotten.
“Grace?” Maddie’s voice drew her dazed eyes to the other end of the hallway.
Her friends had emerged from Ellie’s bedchamber and were making their way toward her up the wide, drafty hallway. Fortunately, there was no sign of Ellie herself, for the poor thing was bound to misunderstand the condition that Grace was in. After all, Grace couldn’t understand it herself.
“In here,” she managed to gasp, fumbling for the handle of her chamber door. Finding it, she almost toppled into her room, her shaky legs forgetting how to hold her up.
“What did he do to you?” Maddie asked fiercely, catching her by the arm and leading her over to one of the armchairs by the fireplace. “Indeed, what possible complaint could he have had?”
Grace sank into the cushions, relishing the warmth of the fire. “He… didn’t do anything to me. He scolded me, that is all.”
Between still-ragged breaths, she explained what had just happened outside in the hallway, leaving out the part where her stomach had fluttered and her heart had briefly felt like it might explode out of her chest. She skirted around the part where, ridiculously, she had thought he was about to kiss her.
He was not. Of course, he was not going to kiss me. It is merely the same lunacy that brought me here in the first place, nothing more.
She was temporarily bewitched by his handsomeness and intensity; that was all. She refused to be the sort of woman who thought daydreams were reality. Indeed, she knew she needed to put such thoughts out of her head, for he had offered her nothing but protection, and protection from a far worse fate was everything she required.
“You can’t possibly proceed with this, Gracie,” Maddie said with a sigh, shaking her head. “I told you that I would give my honest opinion, and I told you that I would be making notes, studying him, and already—in less than half a day—I have found him to be so… completely cold. A brute, really. I doubt I need to do any further research; I have witnessed all I need to.”
“But ithasonly been half a day,” Lilian said, blushing a little. “And not everyone makes a good first impression. Why, you once thought me a mute bore, and you once told us that you used to think Miss Sutton was as mad as a box of frogs.”
Maddie snorted. “Sheisas mad as a box of frogs, which is why she makes that school a paradise, and I haveneverthought you were a mute bore.” She paused. “I thought you were mute, I admit, but never boring. Rather, I thought you were fascinating. You still are.”
“Well, what if the Laird isnotas… emotionally mute as you think he is?” Lilian countered, her cheeks reddening further. “We know he is a soldier and has been fighting a war, so it stands to reason that he is still wearing his armor, in more ways than one. What if, given time, a romantic, passionate, warm gentleman might break through that hard exterior?”
Grace listened intently to the two sides of the argument, finding herself somewhere in the middle.
